In the Deep
by myboygeorge
Summary: When a seemingly innocuous traffic accident sets of a chain of irreversible events, it will take the entire strength of the Twelfth Precinct family to face its biggest challenge yet - the resolution of Johanna Beckett's murder.
1. Prologue

_Okay everyone, here we are, the highly-anticipated, long-awaited story of the Crumbsian resolution to Johanna Beckett's murder. If you haven't done so yet, please find a copy on YouTube or iTunes of Kathleen Bird York's 'In the Deep' as the story takes its title from that song and it also sets the mood for this opening scene. Share the love!_

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><p>The warehouse was dark, damp, smelling of fresh water and old sins. Blue-tinged light wash through dirty windows, cast long shadows over the long-abandoned factory floor. She held her weapon steady in the isosceles stance of her training, forcing her breath to stay light and even. The last thing she needed was a steaming exhale to give her away.<p>

_Thought you had all the answers_  
><em>to rest your heart upon.<em>  
><em>But something happens, don't see it coming, now<em>  
><em>you can't stop yourself.<em>  
><em>Now you're out there swimming...<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>

They would not get away with this, not while Katherine Louise Beckett, daughter of Johanna Beckett, still had breath in her body. She would see to it personally that they paid.

An open door. No footsteps, no voices. Nothing but the echo of her heartbeat in her ears, the pounding of her blood in her veins.

_Life keeps tumbling your heart in circles till you... Let go._  
><em>Till you shed your pride, and you climb to heaven,<em>  
><em>and you throw yourself off.<em>  
><em>Now you're out there spinning...<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>

'Where are you,' she murmured in a voice so low she wasn't sure if she'd even said it aloud. 'Come on, come on, come on, you cowards, you sons of bitches. Where are you?'

_And now you're out there spinning..._  
><em>And now you're out there spinning...<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>

Beckett reached the edge of the next doorway, pressed her back to the wall. She heard the footfalls beyond the door-frame and she forced herself to steady her hands, steel her nerves

_In the silence,_  
><em>all your secrets, will<em>  
><em>raise their worried heads.<em>  
><em>Well, you can pin yourself back together,<em>  
><em>to who you thought you were.<em>  
><em>Now you're out there livin'...<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>

One move, one wrong move, and it was over. It couldn't be over, not until they had all settled their debts to her. Oh yes, these men all had debts to repay her and they would make good on it, even if it meant the spilling of their blood to do it.

_In the deep..._

She heard her son's voice, her little prince's voice ringing in her ears - _you're the best Mumum, you always catch the baddies _- and knew she could face this. Face them.

With her weapon ready, Beckett shoved herself off the wall in her hiding position and stalked into the room.

_Now you're out there spinning..._  
><em>Now you're out there swimming...<em>  
><em>Now you're out there spinning...<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>  
><em>In the deep.<em>

'NYPD! Drop the gun, let him go or I will drop you. Do it! Now!'

_In the deep._  
><em>In the deep...<em>


	2. Bad Moon Rising by CCR

_Hello everyone! Hope you like it so far! As this story is named after a song, so too all the chapter titles will be named after songs as well, so you will essentially have a built-in soundtrack for the story! Now to the good part!_

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><p><strong>FIVE DAYS EARLIER - JANUARY 3RD<strong>

'Thanks again for helping me with this, Dave.'

Meredeth look at Dave with a grateful smile as she ushered the aging Arturo down the short set of stairs of her vet's office. 'He's getting old and I don't like to bring the kids with me to the vet's in case the doctor has bad news for us.'

'Well, how old is he?'

'Almost thirteen. Great Danes don't usually have a long lifespan but he's a mixed breed with a boxer so that's given him some more years.' Meredeth looked at her dog's honey-brown face as he lifted his leg beside the maple sapling and took a giant whizz. 'Good boy, get it all out Artie.'

'Did he check out okay?' Dave asked as he held Arturo's leash and helped into the back seat of Meredeth's Nissan.

'Yeah, he's fine, just keep on taking his steroids, and his-'

Meredeth's words were cut off as she looked up the street and heard the explosion of a high-speed metal-on-metal impact. Glass crunched and shattered, tires squealed, and everyone in the vicinity began to to yell or shout. 'Oh my god! Dave, you-'

But Dave was already sprinting towards the accident, yelling at Meredeth over his shoulder. 'Call nine-one-one, get them to this intersection.'

'On it.' Meredeth chirped the locks on the Nissan, whipped out her phone and dialed as she moved to catch up to her friend. When the dispatcher asked what her emergency was, her voice was calm but her tone was urgent. 'Yes, my name is Meredeth Esposito, I am at the intersection of West Forty-Seventh Street and Eighth Avenue, and there has been a collision between two cars, one traveling north and the other traveling east. I am with a paramedic Dave Robbins, he has gone to assess the situation.'

'Thank you Meredeth, we have registered a radio call from David Robbins and ambulance and fire assistance will be sent to your location. Are you a first responder as well?'

'No, I'm a civilian, but my husband is Javier J. Esposito badge four-one-zero-two-three out of the Twelfth Precinct, and I have a Level three CPR and First Aid certificate.'

'Be advised, assist Paramedic Robbins in whatever way possible without compromising the scene. Are there any dead?'

'One moment.' Meredeth looked where Dave was focusing on the driver of the northbound vehicle; she made a mental note to give the dispatcher the information. 'Dave is there any fatalities?'

'Yeah the driver of the eastbound car, steering shaft went right through his chest and skewered him, he's DOS. Ma'am?' Dave focused on the woman, a pretty blonde in her late fifties with a nasty gash to the head and many other obviously-painful injuries. 'Ma'am, my name is David Robbins, can you hear me?'

'Yes,' she managed in a thin, reedy voice.

'What is your name?'

'Chri...stine. Christine Doran.'

The name had a bell jangling distantly in the back of Meredeth's brain, but she spoke once more to the dispatcher. 'The driver of the eastbound car is dead, he appears to have been killed on impact, and Paramedic Robbins is attending to the driver of the northbound car. The license plate is...Romeo-Juliet-Lima-one-two-six-six. Dave, you have the name of the driver?'

'Yes, her name is Christine Doran, tell them she took the most of the impact.'

'She is the driver of the car,' the dispatcher agreed, calling up the information on her computer. 'Does she have any passengers?'

'Yes, a male, Paramedic Robbins is attending to him now,' she replied, then looked over as she saw the Crown Victorias roll up, uniforms cordoning off the area. Meredeth's stomach did a bounce as she saw her husband and his partner step out in the lead car, Kate Beckett in the second one. 'Detectives Kate Beckett, Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito have just arrived on-scene.'

'Excellent, please close this call now, as police and paramedic radios can now be used to communicate, my name is Gabrielle deRoche and I am on scanner channel three-eighteen.'

'Meredeth? What are you doing here?' Esposito asked, surveying the scene. 'Where's the dog?'

'Artie's in the car, I just loaded him in with Dave when we heard the tires squealing and before I knew it, crunch-time.' Meredeth gave him a statement in brisk, efficient terms of what had happened as they moved to follow up with Dave on the status of the passenger. A few seconds later, they heard the wail of fire and ambulance sirens. 'Dave, how's he doing?'

'Much better than the driver. Sir, can you give us your name.'

'Raglan. John Raglan.'

Esposito looked at Meredeth, turned and saw Beckett standing with Ryan. She was very still, ashen-faced as she watched the man gingerly touch his forehead, winced when his fingers came away with blood.

'Raglan,' she whispered in a hoarse voice. 'Detective John Raglan?'

'Retired, but yeah, I...' He trailed off, went pale as the snow on the sidewalks when he saw Beckett. 'You. What-

'Meredeth, do me a favour,' Ryan murmured to her as she went to move to her friend, 'go take down the license plates, then-'

His words were cut off by the crack of a gunshot. Everyone, including the Lookie-Lous behind the yellow police tape ducked and covered, but even as she did so Beckett kept her eyes on Raglan, the man who had broken her world into a thousand little pieces she hadn't quite picked up yet. She watched his body freeze, then slump, his chest blooming red. A kill-shot, straight through the heart.

She belly crawled the remaining eight feet saw Dave flat on his front as well, saw Esposito had thrown himself over Meredeth. 'Anyone hurt?' she yelled over the din of the crowd. 'Mere? Javi? Dave?'

'No,' Meredeth coughed and gagged on the smell of death. Her eyes were dark and round but clear. 'Where's Ryan?'

'Over here,' he called. 'Nothing punctured.'

'Dave?'

'_Tutti presenti_,' the paramedic replied in Italian, switching to his ancestral tongue. A flick upward of his eyes had him shaking his head. '_Questo non tanto_.'

'English, dude,' Esposito spluttered.

'Oh, sorry, this one not so much.' Dave jerked his thumb up at Raglan.

Beckett looked around, saw the uniforms had called for backup and were getting the crowd under control, so she radioed it in. 'Dispatch this is One-Lincoln-Forty, be advised, shots fired, I have a single gun-shot victim who is DOS at vehicular crime scene at West Forty-Seventh Street and Eighth Avenue. Send patrol units for crowd control and OCME for examination and transport of body. Over.'

'Bodies, Kate. The driver of the other car is dead too.'

'One-Lincoln-Forty, be advised, units are en route, ETA of OCME is approximately ten minutes, over.'

'Acknowledged.'

Beckett rolled to her back, looked up at the windows as her hand went to her weapon; she scanned the columns of plate glass windows, looking for anything that would give her an idea of where the shot came from. Crabbing-crawling on her back, not caring or noticing the number she was doing to her favourite jacket, she moved over to Meredeth and Esposito.

'Guys, you okay?'

'Yeah, just a little rattled,' Meredeth replied, and Esposito's heart swelled in love for his wife. She may have looked like a kindergarten teacher but she was strong as titanium. 'I need to get the license plate numbers for you.'

'Mere, it's okay, the scene is secured, we'll get the numbers for you.'

'No, I need to. I need to do something so I don't panic.'

'Okay. Get the license plate numbers.' Beckett knew how to handle people in shock; Meredeth was a cool head under fire and would do well with a task. 'Give them back to me, then go to one of the ambulances.'

Meredeth nodded, then pressed a hard kiss to her husband's mouth before going to complete her task. With the civilian occupied, Beckett poked her head up to look at John Raglan's body, saw the paramedics hot-footing their way over in their winter-boots to tend to the unconscious Christine. They would tend to her, and Dave would give them the bullet so she gathered her Ry-Sposito monster close.

'Ryan, get on the phone to Montgomery, tell him what's going on. Espo, get on the horn to Adam Brennan, he's in Civilian Liaison Bureau, tell him...' She trailed off, wondering in the back of her mind if she was jumping the gun. Fuck it, this was Raglan and she had a history with him, a history that was disgustingly murky. 'Tell Brennan he needs to meet with Montgomery pronto regarding the Jarrad case.'

It was the code name they'd given her mother's case, but given who the sniper victim was, Esposito knew it didn't take a genius to put this together. 'You smelling blood in the water?'

'I smell something, and it's very familiar,' she replied lowly. 'Right now, we need to work the scene.'


	3. New York Minute by The Eagles

Beckett stayed on scene as long as she could, watched Dave give the information to the incoming paramedics who then transported Christine to an ambulance. She watched as the woman, amazingly still alive and conscious, weakly grip Dave's arm and he bent his head as she tried to say something to him. Beckett filed it away so she would remember to ask Dave. Instead she focused on the crime-scene and wasn't it handy that the other primary witness to the goings-on was not only a good friend but someone eloquent under pressure?

She walked to Meredeth sitting on the back of an open ambulance; she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, gave a wan smile.

'How are you feeling, Mere?'

'All things considered, okay I think. Right now I think I better clear out of here.'

'You know you are a material witness, right?'

'Yes but...' Meredeth chose her words carefully since they were in public. 'Given Raglan's link to the Jarrad case, I know this is more than a traffic collision so I'm going to do what I do best.'

'Round up the troops, make sure they get fed, make sure they rest when necessary, remind them they are only human?'

'Yep. I want you-' she tapped Beckett's shoulder '-to remember this because you know you're going to kick at me when I say you need to stop the paperwork and eat so you can keep doing paperwork.'

'Mere.' Beckett put a hand on her friend's shoulder before she could stand up. 'In case I forget to say it when this thing gets rolling, thank you. You are as vital to our work as any cop, Mere.'

'We're family, Kate, no thanks are needed.'

Beckett moved so her girl could stand, speak to Esposito who gave her a quick kiss. It was the kind of easy affection that told anyone who saw them this was a couple entrenched deeply in love, not unlike-

'Excuse me, sir, you need to step back behind the tape!'

'Fuck that, I'm an assistant civilian liaison to Homicide and my wife is the lead investigator on this scene.'

Beckett turned around and knew she was just as in love as Meresposito, for that was the only explanation as to why she felt a happy rush that her husband was there so she would have someone to be a whipping post.

'Rick, what are you doing here?' she demanded tersely, nudging aside the flustered uniform.

'Well golly gee,' he replied sarcastically, in the way Beckett knew he used to disguise genuine hurt, 'reminded me what I'm supposed to do when I hear breaking news of sniper shots fired at a crime scene and I see you, Espo, Mere, Ryan, even Dave on the ground taking cover?'

'Where are the kids?'

'With Martha and Miss Agnes at Miss Agnes' apartment baking.'

'Right. Sorry.'

Castle shook his head. The desire to touch her was strong, almost overwhelming, but he knew she needed his strength, not his gentleness now. He jammed his hands into his pockets, studied the crumpled up cars that were being assessed by the CSU teams. 'What happened here?'

'It's complicated but the upshot is that John Raglan is on his way to the morgue. He was killed by a sniper shot when Dave was giving him the once over.'

'Dave? Doesn't he deal mainly with mamas and babies?'

'He was helping Meredeth take Arturo to the vets half a block south from here when the accident occurred. Espo, what have you got for me?'

The detective had walked over, studied his notepad with dark eyes that he lifted up to his senior officer. 'This is really weird, Kate. Meredeth gave me the license plates of the two cars, Montgomery had Adam run them back at the precinct. The eastbound car was from a rental company in the Bowery, but the northbound car-'

'The one Raglan was in?'

'It's registered to Christine Doran.'

'Christine Doran? As in the ex-captain Mike Doran's wife?' Beckett blinked hard when Esposito nodded solemnly. 'Why would she be in a car with John Raglan? Okay, you get over to Saint Vincent's to take care of talking to Christine regarding the crash.'

'Tell her it's routine for Homicide to ask since the other driver died, what were she and Raglan talking about, where were they headed.'

'Mm-hmm, and send Ryan over here.'

'Bossy, bossy, Detective,' Castle noted, then zipped up when Beckett glared at him. 'Just saying.'

'Well just say something useful.'

'I'll go to Chelsea, check on Meredeth. Call me for anything.' He kissed her cheek lightly, knowing it would give her the blood-fire she needed to stay pissed off and pumped up.

She rubbed her cheek with her gloved hand where her husband's lips had landed and glared after him. 'He always knows,' she murmured to herself, then put it away for the time being as Ryan approached her. 'Detective, you are coming with me.'

'What about Javi?'

'He's got his own assignment for the moment. I need you with me to talk to the medical examiner.'

Ryan nodded, then stopped dead in his tracks. 'Tell me it's not Lanie. Seeing that and knowing how close Dave was wouldn't be good. Has anyone even told her yet?'

'Dave called her, I heard him. She's going to meet him at Saint Vincent's. But you are going to goose Pearlmutter right now about Raglan.'

'And the other driver?'

'I'll deal with him.'

* * *

><p>Montgomery paced the floor of his office, turning in short tight circles that was making Adam Brennan dizzy. Though he no longer held his rank and was a civilian liaison, he was still dug into the Jarrad case like a tick so when he had to tell his boss at the CLB he was needed in Homicide at the Twelfth by Captain Montgomery, it was far more sticky to get away. When he explained it was pertaining to a cold case from his days in uniform, his boss nodded and let him be.<p>

Now he shut his eyes tight and shook his head. 'Sir, all due respect, what good comes from doing that?'

'Makes me feel better and easier on my liver than a strong drink. How much have you been able to dig out on Christine Doran?'

'Only what there was pertaining to her husband's file. He went to prison after it came to light he ordered his daughter Angela's death because she'd found out his part in her fiance Timo Ross' death thirteen years ago. He's been in Sing-Sing for the last four years and she visited him every week.'

'Make a note, we need to talk to her about those visits and talk to the guards at Sing-Sing who kept an eye on Mike.'

'Already done, sir.'

'Good.' Montgomery looked at the young man, felt a stir of pity. The kid should still be on the job, he thought, and had gotten the boot because he'd killed his lover's abusive husband in an act of passion to protect her from death. He'd been too late and now paid the price for it. 'Adam, had the circumstances been differently, what bureau would you have pursued? Narcotics? Violent Crimes? Homicide?'

'I was thinking tech-crimes. I went to university for computer science before I went into the academy. It seemed like an up and coming field and I thought I'd put my geekiness to use.'

'I think your geekiness as you say is going to be quite helpful, because I think we both know John Raglan was no victim of circumstance like you were.'

'Thank you sir, and I agree. They took my badge but not my brain and certainly not my hacker skills.'

'Would that be skills with a 'z', Adam?'

He laughed, then quieted when Beckett came in the room followed by Ryan. Out of habit, Adam got to his feet and nearly snapped a salute but Ryan waved him down as Beckett stood in front of her captain with a stony expression.

'Detective,' Montgomery said in a low voice.

'Sir. This is my case.'

'I know.' There was no point in trying to pull her off of it so instead he went to his desk, lifted a file. 'John Raglan's service file from five years prior to your mother's death up to his retirement three years after her murder.'

'How did you get that so quickly?'

'Magic fingers.' Adam lifted his hands. 'At the request of a Homicide captain whose detective is investigating said officer's murder.'

Beckett lifted it, began to thumb through when the door to Mongtomery's office opened and Esposito came in, wind-whipped colour in his cheeks.

'Detective Esposito, that was a quick trip to Saint Vincent's.'

'She's in surgery right now, I'm on my way back down but before she went in, I managed to get some very interesting information from her.'

'Like what?'

'In a nutshell, Mike Doran is dead.'


	4. Live & Let Die by Paul McCartney & Wings

'Mike Doran is dead,' Beckett repeated, staring at Esposito.

'Yep. Christine and John were on their way to talk to the guards at Sing-Sing when they were crunched.'

They all looked at each other before Ryan cleared his throat. 'That can't be coincidence, sir,' he said looking toward Montgomery, who nodded his agreement.

'I agree, Detective. What we have so far is enough to run financial and phone information, but it would be better to get a judge in our corner so that when the time comes for the heavy and we all know it's coming given the way John Raglan died.'

'I think we all know this is going to be a hard line to walk, sir,' Beckett said, looked at her men including Adam.

'Agreed,' Esposito nodded solemnly. 'So what's the move?'

'You and Ryan are going up to Sing-Sing, find out everything you can from guards and prisoners alike on Mike Doran's life inside.'

'Phone records, video, your basic outreach from one branch to another. Got it.'

'Be back here for three-thirty and we'll regroup. Adam, you are going to be the captain's bitch - sorry sir-'

'None taken,' Montgomery said; he knew what it took for Beckett to face this down and would let her have latitude where she could.

'You are going to be here, running background on Christine Doran. Nothing that would send up a flag, just to get a picture on the kind of woman we are dealing with. I'm going to sit on the doctors at the hospital until I can talk to Christine myself.'

* * *

><p>Beckett had her badge out and in her palm when she walked onto the surgical floor of Saint Vincent's. She felt a little relief when she saw Daniel Brick at the nurse's station. He glanced up at the scent of the cold out-doors she carried on her clothes, gave her a grim smile.<p>

'Detective Beckett, I thought I heard a rumour you wanted to see my patient.'

'You worked on Christine Doran? What's the damage?'

'I can't comment on that, I can only tell you what anesthetic I gave her. You'll want Samson, and here he comes.'

Beckett turned around, saw that grey-haired, spare-looking man in scrubs walking towards them as he fired off instructions to another man, younger, in scrubs.

'I need to speak with a patient of yours, Christine Doran, regarding the crash that brought her into your care.'

'It will have to wait another hour for her to recover. She's had intensive surgery and we are already pushing protocol by flushing anesthetic from her system instead of letting her recover naturally.'

'All due respect, doctor, you understand that this woman is a material witness to a murder?'

'All due respect, detective, you understand this woman is a human being in need of medical care.'

'We all have our jobs to do, our priorities,' Daniel said, stepping in to be a peacemaker. 'Doctor Samson, I know the detective personally and she wouldn't be the kind to put someone on the line like this if it weren't the only way to go. Detective Beckett, you understand the nature of the situation from a medical standpoint.'

'I wasn't asking you to stand her on her head, Doctor,' Beckett said stiffly. 'I need to speak with her within the hour to learn everything she knows. I will follow up if necessary and I believe her unfit to answer my questions due to her injuries.'

'She needs to rest for at least another forty minutes.'

'Then I'm sure there is a lounge where I can make some phone-calls while I wait.'

'Very well. Nurse Brick, you are cleared for charting.' Samson checked his beeper, moved down the hall which left Daniel with Beckett.

'That's his way of saying do busy work to keep your friend company,' he explained, picking up his charts and ushering Beckett towards a small sitting room. 'So I heard this lady is in some hot water.'

Beckett merely nodded, looked around to make sure they were completely alone in the lounge. Like the other lounge spaces in Saint Vincent's, it was made to look like the common lounge room of a hotel with floral patterned couches, a television, ficus plants in brass pots in the corners. She chose an arm chairs while Daniel plunked his files down on a couch, took a moment to put his feet up.

'Bet you're getting no sleep these days,' Beckett commented.

Daniel's pen stopped on the page. 'Why are you asking me about my wife and babies? Aren't you here for a homicide investigation?'

'I want something normal for a few minutes.'

Daniel could understand that. 'Fair enough.'

Beckett nodded, heard the chirp of her phone. 'Beckett.'

'Warrant came through from Fuqua for the paper trail,' Montgomery told her. 'Contact the boys, call me when you're on the way from the hospital.'

'Got it.' Beckett hung up, then dialed Esposito's cellphone. 'Warrant came through on financial and phone records. Get everything you possibly can.'

'We're almost wrapped here, we'll be back at the precinct by three.'

'Good. Take what you have, snag a conference room and tell Adam to report at three-thirty.'

'How's Christine?'

'I'll let you know when I see her. I'm also calling Meredeth. Where are your kids?'

'They're with my parents, and Mere's at home. I checked in with her and she has enough food to feed a small country.'

'Good. We'll be moving the conference to the loft at five-forty-five.' Beckett hung up, then dialed Meredeth's home number.

'Hi Kate,' she called.

'You going to be up for a catering gig?'

'Time?

'Tonight, six-thirty, bring whatever you've got in the kitchen.'

Meredeth, well-adept at cop-speak, understood perfectly. 'Any special diets?'

'Just the usual. See you then.' Beckett hung up yet again just as Samson come in and he gave her a stern look.

'You have exactly fifteen minutes. Christine is awake and would like to speak to you. Follow me.'

Beckett left Daniel without a second thought, strode down the corridpr after Samson, where she saw Christine lying in a bed, hooked up to tubes that let fluids go in and out of her body. Her eyes were dull with pain but they focused the moment she saw Beckett.

'Know you,' the woman croaked in a hoarse voice. 'De...Detective B...Beckett.'

'That's right, I'm a Homicide detective from the Twelfth Precinct. I need to ask you some questions regarding the death of John Raglan.'

'So tired.'

'I know, Christine, but you were a cop's wife for thirty-six years, you know I wouldn't do this unless I had to.'

Christine nodded, her movement making the papery pillowcase beneath her head rustle. 'I know.'

'When did you meet John this morning?'

'He...he came to my house. After Mike went upstate, I moved out of our apartment and found a little spot downtown. Too many memories, you see.'

'I understand. What next?'

'The prison called me, just after nine. It was my usual day to visit Mike so I'd already taken the day off work. Sometimes Mike would call me before I left to ask if I would bring pictures of Angela for him. I always did.' She shook her head. 'He was responsible for Angela's death and he always needed to be reminded of what he destroyed, what he took from me and cheated himself out of.'

'Was it usual for John to go with you?'

'No. No, it wasn't. He would go, but not all the time, maybe once a month, once every six weeks. He was friends with Mike and...and when I got word that Mike had been killed in prison, I called him, said I wasn't going to be going, but he encouraged me to go.'

'He encouraged you to go?' Beckett repeated, her antennae quivering.

'Yes, he said that it's possible he was killed in prison because of Angela. There were people Angela wrote about, the criminals, who got their fifteen minutes because of her and being that Mike was responsible for her death and an ex-cop to boot, he would be an easy target for a hit. John said we could talk to the prison guards, find out if it was just that simple.'

'Right.'

Beckett saw Christine shift, groan and knew her time was up. 'Okay, thank you Christine. There is one other small thing I have to ask you. We already have the warrant to look into any connections between John Raglan and your husband. I can get a court order but it will be smoother if you give us permission to look at your financial and phone records, in case there is anything that overlaps.'

'Do whatever you need to resolve this. I want to put all this behind me.'

'And of course, if you remember anything, don't' hesitate to call me.'


	5. It's A Long Way To the Top by ACDC

The elevator ride from the precinct garage to the Homicide bullpen gave Beckett a slight bit of solitude and the opportunity for a moment of pure self-indulgence. Making the call she'd wanted to make all day, she dialed Miss Agnes' number.

'Hi Agnes, it's Kate,' she said when her father's girlfriend picked up. 'Are my babies there?'

'No, your man just picked them up not twenty minutes ago, and I'm on my way to see my still-pregnant Andrea.'

'Thanks.'

'Kate, you okay? You don't sound yourself.'

'Long day at work. I have to go, but I will see you and my dad soon.'

She walked into the bullpen to her desk, saw Montgomery and Adam were already in a conference room, ready and waiting for her. She watched Adam for a moment, fussing with papers and everything, and for a brief fleeting moment saw herself. She'd been so eager to get onto the force , to do the job and to make her mother proud by going back over and over and over that case file until her eyes practically bled. Adam had been similar to her.

She wondered if he stayed up at night, thinking about his father and asking himself 'what if', the way she did before other things came into her life.

Before the boys. Before Lanie. Before Castle.

Instead of joining them Beckett went to the breakroom and brewed a full pot of lattees; it was going to be a long night and the full pot would help them pace out their caffeine. And since Meredeth would be cooking for them that night, the last thing she wanted any of them to do was to fill up on coffee, no matter how expensive it was.

She took the pot and several mugs into the conference room; the moment she was in Montgomery was on her.

'We don't have a lot yet Kate, but we've got a start. It's a matter of layers, trying to get down to the core.'

'Sir, I know this won't be easier or streamlined. No one ever said that things in life worth having would be easy to obtain. But this...we've got a real shot, a _real_ shot and-'

Montgomery held up a hand. 'Kate, no one doubts your passion on this. So focus it like a laser beam. Put all your energy, your love and hate, into catching these bastards, not telling me how good our chances are.'

'Okay. Okay.' Beckett poured herself a latte; she was midway through her first sip when the Ry-Sposito monster strolled in side by side and zeroed in on the coffee.

'Excellent. It's bitching cold outside,' Ryan said with a light shiver.

'Meredeth called me too. We are having paninis, tomato veggie soup and her chocolate French puffins for dessert,' Esposito added pouring coffee for himself and his partner.

Once everyone was settled with their cups, they weren't surprised when Adam got the ball rolling. 'I ran financial records on Christine Doran and she was a straight shooter. She works in an upscale florist's boutique on Madison Avenue and lives well within her means. No unusual credit card purchases, though in my opinion our girl's addicted to audiobooks, and no outstanding bills to be paid on her part.'

'What about phone records?' Beckett asked.

'Phone records are a little murkier. I ran the numbers over the last six weeks, and every week she received calls from Mike. I'd need a warrant from the phone company to get the transcripts but they average around fifteen to twenty minutes.'

Adam passed them all copies and Ryan nodded as he pulled out his own file. 'The phone calls coincide with the visitor's log. The day after these phone calls is the day of Christine's visits to her husband, lasting thirty to forty-five minutes.'

'Okay, that makes sense for a woman whose husband is in prison and she wants him to know that she's going to make him pay for hurting her so deeply.' Beckett looked at her men. 'What about the connection to Raglan?'

'There is an equal number of calls going back and forth. Again I need to have a warrant to go deeper and get transcripts, but I've highlighted the dates where they coincide with his visits along with Christine to see Mike.'

'As per the guards and the prisoners, they didn't like the look of Raglan,' Esposito said, consulting his notes. 'They think he has.'

'Okay.' Beckett relayed what she had learned from Christine, the Ry-Sposito Monster making notes along with Brennan. 'I think if we give her a day or two to recuperate, give Samson and Daniel the space they need to get her healthy, Christine warrants a second visit.'

'This is a good start, you guys.' Montgomery looked at all the information they had amassed in such a short amount of time. 'What's the next move?'

'Use the warrant from Fuqua to get the transcripts of the phone calls Adam has highlighted and go from there.'

'Tomorrow.' The captain looked at them all. 'You've all been on the scene of a sniper shooting today, and worked this case intensely. I know you're having dinner tonight together, so put this aside for tonight because you're going to pull some long, twenty-four-seven days ahead.'

* * *

><p>Beckett told her men to take an hour or so to see their families, had Adam come with her back to the loft since she didn't want him alone. She knew some of what was going through his head, and the last thing she wanted was to let him be in a situation where he could spiral out.<p>

'Does the mister know you're bringing a date home?' Adam said, trying for a joke, and considered himself successful when he saw the corners of her mouth quirk up.

'Yes. My children may give you the eagle eye but Rick knows...he knows.'

'How old are you kids?'

'RJ's four and Jojo just turned one on January first.'

'So when the New Year's ball counts down, she says Happy Birthday instead?'

Beckett shrugged. 'Jojo just likes a party. Here we are.'

She unlocked the loft door and when she called out letting the people inside know she was home, she wasn't surprised when she saw Jojo getting to her feet and RJ holding her hand to help her walk over to their mother.

'Careful, Jojo, don't go boom now.'

'Boom-boom-boom,' Jojo gurgled, then dropped her brother's hand to stretch both towards Beckett. 'Mumum home!'

'Yes I am, bumblebee.'

'Cash'um a-day?'

'We're close to catching them today.' She scooped her daughter up, gave her a noisy kiss on the cheek. 'Did you have fun with Miss Agnes and Grams?'

'Dims fun.'

'We made cookies, Mumum! Super fancy cookies Miss A'nes said we can put into the fuh-ree-zie until we are ready to eat them at Vale'tine's Day.' RJ waited, paitently twisting back and forth as he let his little sister go first. She was smaller than him, and he was patient so RJ turned his attention to the tall thin man with sad brown eyes. 'Hi-hi,' he greeted him, stretching out his hand. 'I'm RJ Castle, that's my sister Jojo. She just had her first ever birthday.'

'I'm Adam, I work with your mom.' Adam took the little boy's hand, shook it lightly.

'You are a detective too?'

'Adam works in the civilian bureau,' Beckett explained, and RJ nodded understandingly.

'Like Daddy?'

'Yes, like Daddy. Where is Daddy?'

'He had to put his shirt into the laun-duh-ry because he was silly and didn't wear an apron so he got soup on his shirt.'

'Daddy silly,' Jojo agreed. 'Mumum, suppah?'

'Yes, it's suppertime for you guys.'

'Fam-ee suppah?'

'We'll be together at the table,' Beckett reassured her, putting her back on her feet. Immediately RJ was there, taking her hand.

'Come on, bumblebee Jojo, we need to wash our hands.'

'Wish, wish, wish.'

The youngsters toddled off and Adam smiled. 'They're great kids, Kate.'

'They have their moments.'

She smiled when she watched RJ return and pull out the seat with Jojo's booster seat in it so it was ready to go for one of the adults to help her up. Her heart gave a sigh when Castle came out of the laundry room in a fresh shirt. He gave her his trademark slow and sexy smile, then saw she wasn't alone.

'Officer Brennan, good to see you healthy and whole.'

'It's just Adam Brennan now. I'm in the Civilian Liaison Bureau.'

'Either way.' Castle shook his hand, then, not caring he had an audience, pulled his wife close to him. 'Hello there.'

'Hi.' Beckett wrapped her arms around his shoulders, felt him breathe in the scent of her hair. She patted the space between his shoulder blades and murmured, 'Not yet, Rick.'

'When?'

'You'll know.'


	6. LIttle Wonders by Rob Thomas

'Mumum, why you no' having any supper? Did you eat too much doughnuts?'

'No-nuhs.'

'I think you mean too _many_ doughnuts, RJ.'

Beckett smiled at her babies as she fed Jojo from toddler-sized the bowl of soup; it was Meredeth's tomato ravioli which her children loved. RJ was wearing his little apron to protect his clothes as he carefully shoveled it in, carefully chewing his ravioli, and Jojo made little 'mm-mm' noises after every mouthful.

'That's good, bumblebee?' Beckett cooed at her baby and Jojo smiled to show off her little teeth.

'Dissy!'

'I am trying to teach her to say 'tasty', Mis-ter Adam,' RJ explained to their guest, fastidiously dabbing his lips with his napkin. 'I am her big bro and I have to teach her to say things. It's a very importan' job. Mumum, you didn't answer my question.'

'I'm sorry, RJ, what was your question?'

'Why are you and Daddy not having any supper tonight?'

'Because we aren't hungry just yet and Ryan and Esposito are coming here with Meredeth. We'll ng while we are working on an important case,' Beckett explained to him and RJ nodded in understanding.

'I see, you are gonna have san'wishes while you talk about how to catch the bad guys?'

'Cash'um,' Jojo inquired.

'We're working on finding out everything they did that was bad so that when we catch them and they try to say 'I didn't do it', we have a bunch of evidence to say 'yes you did' and put them in jail.'

'What kin' of ev-ee-dins?'

'Well, seeing who they talked to on the phone, what kinds of things they've bought that might be used by a bad guy, seeing if they looked at bad websites on the Internet. Adam here, he's very good with computers.' She pointed conspiratorially to Adam and winked at RJ. 'He can get all kinds of information out of them.'

'Really?'

Adam had to grin at the boy's wide-eyed expression. 'No one can hide from me.'

Castle grinned as he watched his wife let herself be in the moment, rose to answer the knock at the door so she could have those sweetly innocent moments with her babies after a day that turned her world topsy-turvy. 'Hey, bro, and sis,' he greeted Ryan, Esposito and Meredeth; the latter carried her thermal bag she used for transporting hot dishes from her kitchen to someone else's house. Castle sniffed comically as they came through the door.

'Something smells good.'

'We're having paninis and green chilli. It's easiest for a large group of appetites.'

'Where are your ankle-biters?'

'The boys are hanging with Jenny and Dell tonight and Miss Agnes, gem of a lady she is, invited Tessi, Mallory and Trini for a girls' sleepover party with Nessa,' Esposito informed them. 'Got to love having family who understands the needs of the job.'

'Ain't it the truth,' he laughed, and watched RJ's eyes go bright and wide as he saw the Espositos and Ryan come inside.

'Hi-hi, Meredeth! Hi-hi Detec-tive Esuh-posito! Hi-hi Detec-tive Ryan!'

'Detective is it, little bro,' Ryan grinned when he came over to high-five the boy. 'Why so formal tonight?'

'Be-cause Mumum said you are here as her collie.'

'I think you mean _colleague_,' Adam chuckled.

'Yeah, that thing. It is no' a social visit, you are here to catch the bad guys.'

'Cash'um.' Jojo repeated her favourite phrase RJ had taught her, even as Beckett used the damp cloth to wipe her mouth and hands. 'Cash'um, De-dif.'

'That's right, Jojo!' RJ used his own napkin for the last time since his bowl was empty, and he waited until his mumum was done before reaching over and feeding the birdies with his little sister. 'Javier is a detec-tive like Mumum!'

'De-dif Wyn. De-dif Hoppy.'

'Man, she sounds just like Dell did,' Meredeth laughed as she pulled out a thermal pot, sandwiches the needed to be grilled. 'Adam do you eat food with a face, or no?'

'What?' Adam looked puzzled.

'Are you a vegetarian?'

'Oh, no, not at all.'

Meredeth nodded, and while she did her thing in the kitchen, Castle scooped Jojo out of her chair and took her into the living room with RJ following behind. He set Jojo onto her play-mat where she looked around and poked at the bright alphabet squares she saw, babbled in the way children just learning their spoken vocabulary did.

'That's an 'A', and that is an apple, Jojo.' RJ, who had followed them over, plunked himself down beside his sister. 'That's a D and that is a diamon'. They are very fancy.'

'Dah-mo.'

'Very good Jojo!'

'Yea Dodo!'

'You're not a dodo, Jojo. Hee-hee, dodo Jojo.' He laughed at his own joke. 'You are very smart. Daddy?'

'Yes, RJ,' Castle replied, returning with two small bowls of vanilla frozen-yogurt for his children's dessert.

'Why can't we visit with the dete'tives?'

'Because, RJ, Mumum had a very difficult day at work and she still has a lot of work to do and she wants some time to be home with us but also to laugh with her colleagues.'

'But...but Meredeth isn't a collie.'

'Col-_league_, RJ, there's a 'g' sound on the end there.'

'Col...league.'

'There you go. And you're right she's not, so she is coming over here with us. See?'

RJ watched where his father pointed and saw Meredeth had put out bowls for chilli and plates for paninis, then fixed two plates and brought them to the living room.

'Here we are Rick,' she smiled. 'Smoked turkey with roasted pepper mayo, arugula and Swiss cheese.'

'You're a saint. Saint Foodie of Chelsea-Manhattan, that's what I'm calling you.'

'Meredeth, you are so nice to make my mumum and her col...col-leagues dinner,' RJ told her sweetly.

'Why thank you RJ,' Meredeth replied as she sat down beside Castle on the couch. 'Would you like to try some chilli?'

'Yes please.'

'Me too!' After 'cash'um', 'me too' was Jojo's favourite phrase.

'Okay, sweetie here you go.' Meredeth dabbed barely a dribble onto a spoon and popped it in Jojo's mouth. 'What do you think?'

'Dissy!'

'RJ, your turn now.'

Meredeth gave him a bigger spoonful but unlike his sister, when RJ put the spoon in his mouth and swallowed the sample he looked at her with abject horror.

'Meredeth, that is mean! It is burning my mouth! So hot!'

'Is the temperature too hot for you?'

'No, it is too spicy!' RJ looked around, spied his frozen yogurt and jammed his spoon into the frosty vanilla treat. 'That is just yucky!'

'Well, I think we finally found something you and Trini don't have in common, RJ. My Trini loves spicy foods.'

'Not me.' He shook his head, shoveled in yogurt. 'I love my Trini but she thinks that tastes good? Daddy you were right, girls are funny.'

'No silly!' Jojo couldn't quite understand what it was her brother was saying but she'd heard him use this tone of voice before and she didn't like it one bit. 'No silly!' she said again even as Meredeth and Castle cracked up laughing.

'Oh, Jojo, in about twelve years time you'll understand, bumblebee.'

'Bee! Bee, bee, bee. Bib?'

'Bib is up-suh-tairs, Jojo, you want to go find him?' RJ asked, ready to spring to attention for his sister.

'No. 'Tay.'

'Okay, we'll stay here.'

Beckett looked over from where she was having dinner with her fellow officers, listening to the sounds of her babies and her husband and friend keeping an eye on them, and was suddenly very thankful that she'd had Meredeth insist on making them a dinner like this. They were her here-and-now and they would keep her from sinking under.

Because of them, this time she knew she could fight - would fight - the demons they faced and win.

* * *

><p>When her babies were safely tucked away for the night, and her dinner guests had left for their own homes Beckett went over to her husband who was sitting in front of the fireplace. She sat down on the coffee table so she faced him squarely.<p>

'Kate, I-'

'Shh.' She held her finger to his lips and instead picked up his hands to put gentle kisses onto his knuckles. 'What you did today, pissing me off so I could do the job, only someone who loves me and who I love back would know to do exactly what you did.'

'You're my heart, Kate.'

'I love you so much.' Now Beckett rose, still clasping his hands. 'Let me show you.'


	7. Ain't Goin' Down by Garth Brooks

It helped, the lovemaking with her husband, for it reminded Beckett no matter how much of a fuck-up she felt like on the job, even on her worst day there would always be someone there in her corner, ready to help her dust herself off and get up for the next round.

She lay on top of him, still joined with him in their bed, and listened to his heart race like a thoroughbred at Belmont.

'Now,' she told Castle. 'Now it's okay.'

He nodded and spread his wide hands over her back, felt her shudder as the confused jumble of emotions worked through her heart and mind and came out her eyes. 'Normally, it's rather off putting to a man when a woman weeps in his arms after sex.'

'Rick, now is not the time for your stupid jokes,' she said on a water laugh.

'I said 'normally'. When you are married and your wife needs a good cry, you don't think twice about it. Feel better?'

'Body, yes. Good sex always tunes the system up.'

'And what about here and here?' Castle nudged her up so he could tap between her breasts, tap a finger against her temple.

'Here, is scared to death.' Beckett pointed to her heart. 'This doesn't want to let my mother or Jarrad Brennan down. And this-' she patted the top of her head '-is trying to calculate the next move for Ryan and Espo and Adam.'

She blew out a breath. 'What if we're right, that his father was murdered because of what he knew?'

'Then catching them will bring Adam closure as much as it will you. You lost your mom in ninety-nine when you were, what twenty-one?'

'Almost twenty-two.'

'He was only twenty-four, not that big a difference.'

'Still to young to lose a parent,' Beckett sighed. 'I need to get up, run a few numbers'

'You're not going anywhere, unless you're getting one of those leftover paninis from Meredeth.'

'Castle I need-'

'To get some rest so you can live to fight another day,' he finished for her, rolled them so they were lying side-by-side. 'Ever notice when you are irritated with me, you still call me Castle?'

Beckett gave a little laugh, then felt her stomach gurgle. 'Sex does tend to work up the appetite.'

'How about you guys get a shower and I'll take care of a snack?'

'You guys?'

'Yeah, you and the voices in your head trying to muddle through the problem.' Castle grinned when she gave him a shove that put his on his back. 'That a yes or a no?'

Beckett simply kissed him and got out of bed to find a towel. 'When I get out of there, I better smell crispy bread and olive oil.'

* * *

><p><strong>JANUARY 4TH<strong>

'How's Meredeth doing? Has it triggered any night terrors?'

'No, she's rock solid.'

Esposito ran his palm over his smooth scalp as he stepped off the elevator with Ryan into the Homicide bullpen, saw Beckett through the wire-mesh wall. 'How do you think she slept last night?' he asked his partner.

'Too soon to tell. Ask in a week.'

They dropped their file bags on their desk chairs, saw Beckett staring at her murder board; neither was surprised to see her already there though it was six in the morning.

'Boys, hope you're ready to burn your corneas.'

'Why?'

'Adam will have phone transcripts for these calls by nine this morning.' Beckett pointed to the list of calls from Christine to Mike and Christine to Raglan. 'We are going through them with a fine-tooth comb. Meanwhile, we are also going to get into Raglan's financial information and look for overlap.'

Ryan fidgeted on the spot a little. 'So why are we here two hours before start of shift?'

'Because Detective Ryan, we are going to look through the Jarrad case notes to see if there was any previous overlap in Raglan and Doran's paths. We are going to alternate it in rotating pairs so as not to arouse suspicion until eight am when we go off skeleton crew.' Beckett pulled the copies from her own file bag. 'Who wants to go first?'

Fifteen minutes later, Beckett was sitting with Ryan in the conference room where they shared a pot of strong coffee and a plate of breakfast pastries from The Salamander. It made the task of paperwork only marginally less painful, but then this was the subtext to the Doran/Raglan homicide. Every little thing counted.

'You got anything yet, Ryan?'

'Maybe.'

His positive answer had Beckett sitting up a little straighter. 'What did you find?'

'This, it's dated about six weeks after your mother was found in that alley, he makes a note how he noticed Raglan making frequent trips to the Narc bureau, and the records room at the Seventy-Second.'

'The records room?'

'Yeah, Jarrad went to the records room himself and lifted the log book when the officer on duty wasn't looking, made photocopies.' Ryan shuffled through his copies of the Jarrad Brennan file until he came across the paper.

Beckett looked at the paper he handed her, saw the too-frequent recurrence of their names at the same time. She felt the tingle at the bottom of her neck. 'Now why would narco and homicide need to go that often to the records room unless they were looking for something specific they couldn't find.'

'That makes the most sense, unless...'

'Unless what?'

'Unless they were doctoring records,' Ryan ventured cautiously. 'Why else would they need to keep a lid on things. Didn't a couple of files go missing around the time of your mother's murder?'

'Uh-huh.' Beckett pulled out the book where she'd condensed every last note, thought or idea about her mother's case into a thick, cohesive file. 'Regarding a drug-dealer named Roman Moore, according to my own notes about her...her death.'

Ryan felt the pinch in her voice as easily as if she'd reached over and grabbed the flesh of his biceps between her fingers. Some days it was just way to hard to use certain words when talking about a deceased loved one. His own mother had never used the word 'funeral' when talking about her father's death, she'd always called it 'services', and Beckett was on the same track now. Of course, Ryan wasn't about to begrudge her whatever she needed in that regard; whatever it took to keep her on track with this case.

'Is it possible it was his case she was looking into with her colleagues that were also killed by Rathbone? The documents clerk, the NFP lawyer and her former law student?'

'Maybe.' Beckett dug into her file bag, came up with the second spiral notebook she'd started ever since they'd taken custody of the contents of the Brennan safety deposit box. She knew it was more time consuming to do it this way but there would be no risks taken of files being electronically altered or digitally erased.

She flipped to a fresh page and turned the book sideways to begin making a map of connections. Under one heading she wrote the names of her mother's colleagues - Diane Cavannaugh, Jennifer Stewart and Scott Murray. She bracketed their names together, then wrote 'Roman Moore, drug dealer' and arrows going back and forth between them with the words _how/why linked?_

There was a knock on the door and after lifting her head to see it was Esposito, she waved him in as she wrote on a post-it note. 'Adam here yet?'

'No, not yet. How goes it in here?'

'We're looking into the possibility of some records being altered by Doran and Raglan in the records room of the Seventy-Second just after my mother's death.'

'And no-one thought to invite me?' Esposito pulled up a chair, turned back the cuffs of his natty dress shirt. 'What's the deal?'

Ryan got him up to speed, adding on something else he'd found. 'There's also this. Jarrad Brennan noted how he went back over some old files he'd been involved with, drug busts mostly since the Seventy-Second was and is principally a narc-house, and that Mike Doran always seemed to have the hot tips about where the major busts were going down, and we're talking multiple kinds of product, weapons, the whole giddy-up.'

'Curiouser and curiouser,' Beckett murmured as she made more notes, then set down her pen to look at her Detectives. 'And we know Mike had a hand in the death of his star drug-cop Timo Ross, which makes me think all kinds of things.'

'What's the move?' the Ry-Sposito monster chorused, watching Beckett's wheels turn; they could almost hear the _tick-tick _clockwork of her mind as it deliberated.

'We keep going here until Adam gets in, and as soon as he has the phone and financial records, we go to Fuqua to start looking at any old cases where Raglan and Doran worked together.'


	8. Call and Answer by The Barenaked Ladies

Adam Brennan wasn't quite sure what to think when he saw Detective Beckett sitting at his cubicle in the Civilian Liaison Bureau. She looked so out of place there, like a bullfighter at the Preakness. His father had loved horse-racing the way some people loved the theatre, and he'd passed it on to his only child; Adam always made horse analogies when he felt particularly stressed.

'Adam,' she said with a lightly friendly smile. 'Can I call you Adam?'

'Sure, or C-L Brennan, if you like.'

'Is there some place private we can talk?'

Adam looked around, saw a small boardroom free. It was the only one that didn't have a glass-window wall that looked into the corporate-pool atmosphere of the Civilian Liaison Bureau's offices and would serve their purposes. He made a 'come-along' gesture and flipped on the lights in the boardroom, closed the door.

'You want coffee? Nothing like the premium ex-presso you have with your alien craft coffee machine upstairs in Homicide.'

'Adam, you ever notice that for a New Yorker, you are exceptionally naive to Starbucks-type drinks? Java Loft and Jumping Bean too?'

'That's because plain, black coffee is all any cop ever needed for two hundred-plus years before Starbucks and Java Loft and Jumping Bean came along.'

'You like when I make lattes,' Beckett pointed out dryly.

'Yes, because you're being nice to me. And they taste good when I am sick of the straight-black motor oil I get down here.'

'That they do.'

Adam nodded, knowing the small talk about coffee was her way of easing rather ham-fistedly into a hard subject. He took out a picket-sized notebook and Li'l Shorty pocket-pen to take the notes down he would put into his files at home. 'What have you got for me?'

'We've gotten the go-ahead from Judge Michelle Fuqua to go into Mike Doran and John Raglan's financial records, a deep-level search. I also need you to dig up anything you can find on Roman Moore.'

'He a suspect?'

'He's a person of interest in the Jarrad case.'

Beckett watched Adam's face, felt her heart break for him. He still had the look, the cool-eyed, thinking look of a cop and he'd been stripped of all symbols. They hadn't taken his brain, that was for damn sure. Drawing in a quiet breath, she went on, 'In the three months before my mother's death, two people worked with and a court clerk were murdered, also by Dick Coonan, and we've come to the conclusion it had to be over a case they were working on. We think it was Roman Moore's case.'

'How does he fit in?'

She laid it out for him, what they'd deduced in the hours before his arrival, and for the first time since bringing Adam in on the case Beckett saw his eyes go frosty.

'From now on,' he said with muted control, 'you tag me for whatever hours your are working. Just because I'm technically no longer a cop doesn't mean that you have the prerogative to treat me like a child. I'm in this just as much as you.'

'Adam, I can't ask you to do that.'

'No, you can't, and you're not. I'm asking it of you. My father may not have been murdered by Dick Coonan but there's a possibility...' Adam trailed off as sickness came into his belly like a slithering animal. 'There's a possibility that his suicide is actually staged and that he was murdered because of what he knew about your mother's case. That means I have a parent I need to let rest easy, too.'

'Okay. From now on you're with us. How will you swing that with your supervisor here?'

'I'll talk to Montgomery about it, call a meeting with my commanding...my supervisor.'

'Never goes away, does it?'

'No.' Adam shook his head. 'It never does.'

'What about your friend Cruz?'

'I haven't talked to Maggie in a while, not after it came out about her with IAB.'

Beckett had a flash to being massively pregnant with Jojo and thoroughly pissed off when the sneering Blake Holmes had sat smugly in Montgomery's office, telling her that Cruz wasn't her problem. 'What about her and IAB?'

'Turns out I was on IAB's radar around the same time you were thinking I was a multiple murderer,' Adam replied, allowing the hint of a quirky smile around his mouth. 'They had her passing the goods on me to that rat bastard over those same murderers you were looking into that ended up with me getting booted from the force.'

'You're still here.'

'Wow, heavy metaphor this early in the morning? You must desperately want me to get this crap done.'

'Is it safe to work here?' she asked, looking around the boardroom. 'Or would you feel less stressed working in Homicide.'

'I'll come with you.'

They tidied up the files and not a moment too soon, as a bullish man with thinning steel-grey hair resembling a Brillo-pad came into the conference room.

'Brennan, I need you out of here. I have a meet with the Deputy of Detectives South Manhattan so you playing detective for this concerned citizen needs to find another home.'

Beckett gave Brennan a subtle shake of the head, then rose as the young ex-cop gathered their paper work. 'May I have your name?'

'Ma'am, I'm Thomas Gibson, you know like that actor? I hope Adam isn't wasting too much of your time with his half-assed theories. Fancies he's still a cop.'

'On the contrary, I have found his skills and insights most helpful to my investigation.' Beckett tried not to let it show how much she was relishing the draining of blood from this bureaucrat's face when she held up her badge. 'And it's Detective Beckett.'

'Beckett. From Homicide. Nikki Heat.'

'Exactly. Adam is assisting me on a case and I required a word with him in private. As it happens, he is coming with me now to continue said investigation.'

'Of course, Adam, give the l- the detective whatever she needs. I'll make sure your duties are covered.'

Gibson scuttled off and Adam grinned. 'Can we go again, Mom? Please? Or should I call you Mumum?'

'Can it, Brennan.' But there was humour in Beckett's eyes; it stayed with her until they got back to the Homicide floor and saw the Ry-Sposito monster in the conference room. She walked in, heard their trademark bickering over the sorting system of various sheets.

'Dude, I just had page sixteen, where is it?'

'It should be in the middle pile.'

'Kevin, you have four middle piles.'

'Boys, do you need a time-out,' Beckett asked in the same tone she would use for her own children as she sat down. 'Adam's with us from here on in.'

'Great, maybe you can knock some sense into my partner's head on how his organizing system is ridiculous,' Esposito said without looking up from the piles of phone records.

'No, no, suck it up, you whiny little toad,' Ryan retaliated, 'Adam is getting us even more paperwork to sort through.'

That they weren't pitying or asking him any kind of intrusive question made Adam feel even more like he was a cop again. Instead, he went to the computer station in the window-corner of the conference room and logged in, got the information he needed so he could destroy a small forest with this amount of phone transcripts.

When he brought them back, plunked them unceremoniously into the middle of the table, the groans of the detectives was music to his ears.

'Come on, you know you love me.'

Beckett listened to him joke with her men and shook her head, scanned through the first couple of phone-calls, saw they weren't anything terribly interesting. The usual 'hang in there, buddy' 'bring me some fresh books' 'you need some smokes' chatter one had with someone in prison.

She turned it over, picked up the next one. A quick scan of the first few lines and her relaxed reading position was gone; Beckett was sitting ramrod straight in her chair.

'Guys, I might have something here,' she said, and Ryan and Esposito both dropped their files while Adam wheeled over in his computer chair. They gathered around to look at the transcript.

_John, we gotta talk_

_Bout what_

_Cowlan was by to see Christine. She started asking me questions about Angie and Timo and the bank accounts_

_ What did you tell her_

_Nothing, I swear  
><em>

_Something will have to be done about her_

_John no, please leave me Christine. I already lost Angie because of this, leave Christine out of it. Angie got what was coming to her, no question, but Christine was just in the cross hairs_

_Okay You transfer me a good-faith payment I'll make sure she stays safe  
><em>


	9. Money by Flying Lizards

_Hello all! Hard to believe we're already at the Christmas break for season 4! And yea! One more episode ordered! As per usual, I own nothing, including the lines of dialogue from s2's 'Sucker Punch' in here. Also, see if you can spot the 'Twin Peaks' reference!_

* * *

><p>'Whoa.'<p>

Ryan let the single word hang and speak for them all. He didn't have to look at their faces to know their expressions mirrored his own, one of round, abject horror. This job could put dents in a person, toughen their outward sensibilities but reading this phone transcript and seeing a man tell his friend that his daughter deserved the death she got touched a part of them even deeper.

'Keep reading it through, Ryan,' Beckett instructed him. 'We need to hear the rest.'

_How the fuck am I supposed to get at my accounts in here_

_Your wife, your ass, your problem Mike  
><em>

_Goddamn it, John, my files are monitored and if I ask Christine to do it, you know she'll be up here with more fire than either of us can afford to take_

_Like I said, your wife, your ass, your problem _

_What if I gave you my codes, you can get the money yourself, take a little extra for your troubles_

_Could work. Because we're friends let's make it twenty-nine  
><em>

_Twenty-nine  
><em>

_Yeah, fifteen for Cowlan not to visit Christine anymore, twelve for your good faith to me, and two grand for the troubles you're handing me on a plate_

_Thank you, John_

_Codes_

_You want Cayman, Swiss or Singapore_

_Which gets the least amount of attention_

_Singapore, it filters the interest into my pocket account_

_Then let's go Swiss, they won't care about your moving money around to your other accounts. They may be a bunch of wine-drinking pussies but they sure know their numbers I need the codes_

_Account Foxtrot-Alpha-two-one-two-Delta-seven-seven-Sierra-Romeo-eight-nine-Echo-Charlie passcode Romeo-Alpha-India-November-Yankee-Delta-Alpha-Yankee-four-Mike Echo_

_You've never been a good man Mike but you're an excellent weasel I'll be in touch  
><em>

'Jesus, Kate,' Ryan puffed out; he had a sudden overwhelming urge to hold his kids close, breathe deep the scent of his wife's skin.

'We need to find out who this Cowlan is,' Beckett said, though she already had one in mind. 'Is there anyway to reverse engineer the phone numbers, Adam?'

'Yeah, that's easy to do since I've got the records. I can do that mostly without a warrant.'

'Good, we need to see every overlapping number Doran and Raglan called.'

Esposito saw the punched-out look in Beckett's eyes, and while the friend felt sympathy, the cop's instincts were humming. 'You got a bone, Kate?'

'Yeah, and not just some poor cow, either. If I am thinking right, we've found some big damn dinosaurs bones.'

'Why's that?'

'Because the commanding officer of the Narcotics bureau at the Seventy-Second before Iron-Mike Doran was Captain Francis Cowlan.'

Everyone in the room froze as Beckett let the thought hang, marinate in their brains. It was hard enough when everyone had learned that Mike Doran had gone down for racketeering and his involvement in a drug ring, but to think that it was inherited rather than founded was positively soul-chilling. Because where there was one rat bastard dirty cop with a taste for money, there was sure to be another.

'It makes sense,' Ryan said sadly, shaking his head. 'We know Dick Coonan was a big-time drug-runner, we know Brennan confirmed Rathbone was Dick Coonan, and we know Mike was up to his neck in dirty deeds.'

'Uh-huh.' Beckett could hear Dick Coonan's voice in her mind, those final exchanges with him before Montgomery had drawn his weapon, before she herself ensured that the murderous fucker had left the building wrapped in plastic.

_It wasn't personal she was just a job_

_She was my mother. Who hired you to kill her?_

_Forget it, you'll never touch him, he'll bury you_

_Tell me who-_

'Detective Beckett?'

Adam's voice brought her back into the present, and she looked at him. 'We need more dots, Ryan. And that's what we're going to get. C-L Brennan, you are on the phone records, keep going with them. Esposito, you are going to Fuqua to make your case for a warrant for the prison roster.'

'Prison roster?'

'There's no way after four years of careful living Mike Doran was suddenly jumped in the prison yard. It was a hit so wheels had to be greased. No, no.' She cut herself off, shook her head. 'Stay here with Adam, going over the phone records, and tap Fuqua to get a secondary warrant for them if necessary. Ryan, you're with me.'

'Okay.'

Ryan wanted to make a neener-neener face at his paperwork-loathing partner, but he'd heard the tightness in Beckett's voice and knew it could wait. He followed her out and wasn't surprised they were going to the captain's office; Ryan had had wits enough to grab the phone transcript to show to the captain and he had a feeling the man would be far less silent in his shock.

His prediction was dead accurate, as Beckett informed him of their quick work which the captain deemed impressive yet unsurprising but when she passed him the, Montgomery let fly a couple of curses that had even Ryan's seasoned ears burning a tad.

'That low-lying two-faced fucking shithole! Goddammit, I fucking recommended Mike to Frank Cowlan for the narc bureau after we were promoted to captaincy over two decades ago. Fuck!'

'I take it then you agree my inference the Cowlan mentioned here is the now-retired Captain Franklin Cowlan of the NYPD's Seventy-Second Narcotics Bureau.'

'Damn right I do.' Montgomery sat down heavily in his chair, scrubbed his hands over his face. 'If you want, you can read me my rights.'

'Sir?' Beckett's eyes went round.

'Since you could technically use what I'm going to say as leverage for an avenue of your investigation, you could read me my rights as an informant to make sure my ass is protected.'

Ryan looked at Beckett, and with amazing fortitude watched as she cleared her throat and calmly read Roy Montgomery his rights. When she'd finished, she sat down in front of him, switched into survivor mode.

'Tell me why you think Frank Cowlan is the man in the conversation.'

'About two years before Mike was made captain at the bureau, when Cowlan was still running the show, one of his weasels was found guilty of murder.' Montgomery slid his gaze over to Ryan. 'I'm sure you heard about that one.'

'I did, it was just after I moved from Narco to Homicide. It was hard not to hear about it when an undercover cop was killed by a weasel.'

'I don't remember the name of the weasel, but I remember the cop's name. Matthew Montrose.' Montgomery got the glaze of remembrance in his eyes, mixed with grief that any cop felt when one of their own went down.

'Did you know him personally sir?'

'By reputation only. It's hard to be friends with the under-covers, you know? From what I do know about him, he was very good at mixing with the criminal underworld. He was a straight cop, no question, but he always knew the tricks to pull to make sure he kept off the radar. Montrose was the kind of cop who saw the work as the reward, not the shiny bits of metal pinned on a ribbon to his dress blues.'

'How did he die?'

'That's what part of the inquiry was into Cowlan's command. After the initial investigation, things started looking a little sketchy, that it was far too neat for this weasel to be wrapped up in murder. IAB set the dogs on Cowlan, who turned it back on the, saying they were being racist, that there'd never been an inquiry into a Narco captain until a black man was in the chair.'

'Was that true, sir?' Ryan asked.

'It didn't matter if it was or not, all someone has to do is say it and people make their own conclusions.' The captain reached for the bottle of iced tea by his desk lamp; both the detectives recognized Meredeth's home-brew. 'IAB gave him the hard eye, but they never found anything they could suspend him on. After that, Timo Ross came over from the Twenty-Third and suddenly, he's Mister Big-Shot so people were focusing more on that than the lost officer. Looking forward, carrying on the job just like he would have wanted.'

'Okay. So how do we play it, how do we get Cowlan into interview?' Beckett jumped in.'

'We'll need more than a single phone call, that's for sure Kate,' Montgomery told her. 'You're going to need solid proof.'

'I know sir, and how are we going to get that if we can't interview him? We can't go looking into Matthew Montrose's murder, we'll be putting ourselves up for duck hunt if we do.'

'You'll figure it out, Beckett.'

She nodded briskly, then stood up once more. 'Come on, Ryan, we've got an ME to goose.'


	10. I Dare You to Move by Switchfoot

There was little Pearlmutter could tell them they didn't already know, which didn't do much to help Beckett's state of mind. She followed him around his autopsy while he stuffed the dregs of a soft-taco into his mouth.

'Give me something, Pearlmutter,' she demanded, hoping her tone stayed forceful and didn't slip to pleading.

'Like what? Tickets to a Mets game? Your boy was in his early sixties, he had considerable liver damage thanks to too many trips into Whiskey-Land and was starting to feel the effects of the kidney disease he probably didn't know he had yet. His blood alcohol level was point-zero-three, he didn't take any drugs for sex or party-time, and he was killed by a single bullet to the chest which crossed through several major arteries. He wouldn't have known what was happening as the body would have sent the brain into shock so we can say he didn't feel his death.'

'There has to be something, this man wasn't killed just for kicks.'

'Then go and talk to CSU,' Pearlmutter sneered, and Beckett wanted to slap him. The man may have been good at his job, but as Castle had once pointed out there was a reason the man worked with the dead. 'Maybe those petri-jockeys can help you out.'

'Ryan,' was all she said and he nodded, headed out the door, though Ryan had to wonder has he went if it was because Beckett wanted a little privacy to rip the pathologist's liver out and eat it raw.

Alone with the doctor, Beckett spoke as calmly and civilly as she could; with Pearlmutter that was more than a bit of a stretch. 'Doctor Pearlmutter, you understand who this man is? His connection to me?'

'Yeah, he's your vic, I get it-'

'He was also the man who investigated my mother's murder. The woman driving the car he was in, they were on their way to Sing-Sing because that woman is Christine Doran, and her husband Mike was killed in prison this morning.'

'Doran? Like that dirty cop?'

Even to someone as dense as Pearlmutter the sting of Doran's betrayal was deep. 'Not like that dirty cop, he is - was - that dirty cop,' Beckett replied. 'His death and Raglan's are linked and I know in my gut- hell, I know it in my _soul_ that their deaths are linked to my mother's case.' Her voice was strong with passion as she stared down a now-pale Pearlmutter. 'So please give me something fresh. What about his personal effects, his cellphone, his wallet, anything like that.'

'Not much there I can say. He only had a few dollars in cash in his wallet, he had no religious medallions on a chain, his only jewelery was a wedding ring.' Pearlmutter picked up the file off his bench. 'Ballistics has the slug pulled out of his chest, and AV has his SIM cards, so beyond that, he looks like-'

'Wait, you said SIM cards? Plural? As in more than one?'

'Yeah, he had two cellphones on him.'

Beckett could have danced for joy on the autopsy table. Instead she gave him a brisk nod and thanking him, left the theatre to find Ryan talking to Shane and Lanie; all three had a cookie in their hand, and Lanie and Ryan had bottled smoothies. All three stopped when they looked up at her and had the good grace to look guilty. 'I thought you were calling the CSU lab, Detective, not stopping for recess-time.'

'But, Mom, we had to ask him to be on our kickball team,' Shane said in a teasing whine, then held out a box. 'Alexis was baking with RJ this morning. Toffee-walnut and oatmeal. Unless, of course chewing would take away from investigating.'

'Give me a fucking cookie.'

Shane, ever a wise man, held out the box and said nothing when she snagged three, crammed one in right away. He'd heard from Alexis and Castle that morning just how maxed out already his mother-in-law was about this case, and knew saying three was not one would get him no where fast. Instead, he put the lid on the tin once more and scratched his cheek, sending the gold of his wedding ring winking under the industrial lights.

'You get anything from the lab?' Beckett asked Ryan as she swallowed.

'Yeah, ballistics is ready with a report for us and the Cheese Whiz can give us a prelim.'

'Outstanding. Let's move.'

She turned on her heel, then turned back to Shane and Lanie and felt a punch of guilt when she saw their placid, understanding looks. 'Sorry to bitch and run but this is time-sensitive.'

'I know, girl,' Lanie said.

'You know Raglan was-'

'I know, girl,' she repeated, this time with a little smile. 'Go. There's plenty of time next week when we throw Andrea a baby shower.'

'Right. Thanks.'

Ryan kept his mouth shut as they rode down the elevator, didn't say a word until they were back in Beckett's Crown Vic. 'Beckett, you're doing it again.'

'What?'

'That thing you do whenever your mother's case comes up. Why do you always shut Lanie down, yet you always let Andrea and Meredeth in?'

'Now you want to be my therapist too, Detective?' she snapped.

'No, I want to be your friend. Watching you like that with Lanie doesn't go down so nicely.'

'Because Meredeth and Andrea know what it's like to lose a parent.'

'And Lanie doesn't?' Ryan fired back as they looped north towards the precinct. 'She hasn't spoken to her mother since she was fourteen, Kate.'

'Her choice. Andrea didn't have a choice when she lost her father and Meredeth had so many choices taken away from her because of circumstance.'

'So did Lanie. You're conveniently forgetting that Andrea stopped speaking to her mother for nine years after her father died, and that it wasn't Lanie's choice to stop speaking to her mother. Lanie's mother cut her out since Lanie supported her father when they got divorced.'

'Fine. Here.' Beckett fished her cellphone from her pocket, tossed it at Ryan. 'Her cell is speed dial eight. Push the pound key for speaker-mode.'

The only sound for a few thrumming moments in the car was the tinny echo of the phone ringing. When Lanie picked up, her voice was full of worry; it made Beckett's throat close up.

'Katie? Are you okay, were you in an accident?'

'No, I'm fine, I just...I'm sorry, for snapping.'

'Please, I'm used to you doing that by now. I know what it means for you to be working on this case-'

'No, you don't. Look, are you free tonight?'

'I was planning on shopping for Dave's birthday so he is watching the kids but I'll blow it off if you need girl time.'

'Do your shopping until I call you.' Beckett let out a little sigh. 'I'm sorry,' she said again.

'Kate, forget tonight, I'll come by the precinct when I'm off shift, talk to you then.'

'Lanie-'

Now the lady doctor used her mama-voice. 'Girl, don't argue with me.'

'Okay. The precinct, when you're done. I'll be there.'

Ryan pressed the button to end the call, held onto it so Beckett wouldn't have something to throw against the closed window of the car. 'Don't you feel better now?'

'Shut up, and answer the phone,' she snarled when it began to ring again. 'Beckett.'

'Hi-hi Mumum!'

RJ's voice was sparrow-bright; just hearing his little greeting nearly had Beckett's steel crumbling. 'Is that my little prince?'

'Uh-huh, your little chef prince! Mumum, I have to ask you a very importan' question.'

'Fire away.'

'Shane called and said me and Jojo were invited for bros-an'-sisters night to-night with him and Alexis, may we go puh-lease?'

'Did your daddy already say yes?' Beckett asked, knowing Castle wouldn't let RJ call unless it was for form's sake.

'Oh, yes, Mumum, I am double-checking with you.'

'That is just fine with me.'

'Yea! Guh-racias, Mumum! Jus' a momen' Daddy wants to say hi-hi.'

There was a shuffling sound and Castle came on the line. 'Hey Kate, thought that might be a nice little pick-me-up for you.'

'Shane called you didn't he?'

'Yes he did, said you looked like you needed your boy's cheeriness.' Castle didn't add that Shane observed she looked like she was either going to burst into frustrated passionate tears or kick everyone's ass. 'How were the cookies?'

'Deliciously inappropriate.'

'Remember what Meredeth said?'

'Yeah, smartass I do.' It felt good to bitch at someone who loved her, Beckett realized. 'Now time for me to put my sugar-fueled body to work.'

'Any chance of bringing that into the bedroom tonight?'

Ryan coughed and Beckett had her second real smile of the day. 'Careful, Castle, or you'll make Ryan blush. That's Esposito's job.'


	11. Liar by The Cranberries

'So, don't you feel better now?' Ryan asked in a sing-song voice. 'You got to hear from your boys, you sort-of made things right with Lanie, and lookie-here, the world didn't explode.'

Beckett wrinkled her nose as she pulled into the underground parking lot. It was decidedly convenient the CSU lab was located in the same building-block as their precinct. 'How does Jenny handle it?'

'Handle what?'

'Loving and living with such a wise-ass know-it-all.'

'Same way Castle has handled loving and living with you.'

Beckett laughed, felt her world set a little more right. When she'd turned off the engine, she sat and sighed, thumped her head against the headrest. 'It's hard to talk about it when the case is still on going. Even my husband will tell you that. Because I know if I talk about it, about...about my mother, it makes it hurt far more to get up and do the job because those feelings just bubble out with no way to control them.'

'I have an inkling,' Ryan said, thinking of the way he got when pregnant women were in jeopardy. No one in heaven or earth could talk him down until the rat-bastard scaring her, hurting her, making her feel worried or sick or scared had paid. 'Kate, if you broke, do you think we'd baby you? That we'd pat you on the head and take this over when everyone knows what this is to you?'

'The possibility you would scares me.'

'There's that damned German blood again, no wonder you are so rockheaded,' he said casually and Beckett chuckled.

'I'd say it was more my dad's Irish blood, all het up for a fight.' She looked at him. 'Thank you Kevin.'

'Squish squish squish.'

'Then let's go find the Cheese Whiz, he's always earned an ass-kicking for one reason or another.'

* * *

><p>After picking up a completed report from Ballistics, they found Riley Fontina, the Cheese Whiz himself, on his cellphone in his AV lab, surrounded by screens and monitors. The room was frigidly cold, yet Riley was wearing his usual sweater vest and short-sleeved Oxford shirt. They hung back a moment as they listened to him on the phone, clearly with his fiancee.<p>

'I know, sweetie, but the doctor said you're still supposed to rest. You can do some knitting or some reading.' He glanced up as Ryan cleared his throat. 'I gotta run, Beckett's here. Love you too Susie-boo.'

'Susie-boo?' Ryan asked dryly.

'You want I should call her Lab Technician Susan Erica Andrews?'

'No, just never heard you use her first name. Pearlmutter sent us, said you have two SIM cards to run from John Raglan?'

'Yeah.' Riley wheeled himself over to one of his many many desks, picked up a disturbingly thick file. 'My prelim.'

'That's for both of the cellphones?'

'The first one, the one registered to his name. He had no landline so literally every text and call he made is here, whether it was ordering pizza, making a dentist appointment or calling his girlfriend for phone sex.'

'Espo is going to kill you,' Ryan murmured to Beckett, 'and Adam will take the leftovers.'

'Not when they see what else I found.' Riley held up a second file, thinner but not by much. 'This is from the second phone, the burner. I traced the serial number from the card and it was purchased at the Chatterbox, on Fifty-First and Second, about six years ago.'

'Awfully long time to keep a burner,' Beckett commented but her wheels were clicking. Six years ago was around the same time Mike Doran had been incarcerated. She made a mental note to check out the number against the records Adam and Esposito were burning through.

'Yeah, well, figuring out the why is your job, not mine. The burner didn't have photo capability, too cheap a model, but the cellphone is a recent upgrade and has video and photo which is currently downloading and pixilating for better quality.'

'Call Ryan when you have the results,' Beckett ordered him and Riley sneered.

'You're not the only one with a priority case, Detective.'

'Then I'll make it my priority to come here and stand you on your head until the photo prints and video discs are in my hot little hands.'

'You don't want that, bro,' Ryan informed him before Riley could retort. 'I've seen her do it, and had it done to me. Trust me, it's not pretty.'

Riley rolled his eyes, looked at his computer agenda. 'Fine, I can fit you in between Camden and Roberts.'

'Excellent.'

Beckett waited until they were in the elevator on their way up to the Homicide bullpen before sliding her eyes to Ryan. 'When have I ever stood you on your head?'

'You were five months pregnant with Jojo when you were pissed off with us for touching your yogurt.'

'I was pregnant, that doesn't count.'

'Yes it does,' Ryan muttered; the elevator doors opened and they were greeted with the sight of Esposito rushing out of the conference room towards Montgomery's office. In an instant, they were running to catch up to him. 'What's the deal, bro,' he asked.

'Just come with me.'

Esposito didn't bother knocking on Montgomery's closed door, just shoved it open and sneered when he saw Captain Blake Holmes of Internal Affairs just about to sit down in the guest chair across from the captain.

'Sir, I need to speak with you, we all do,' he said urgently, not even bothering to give Blake a passing glance. 'Regarding the Raglan case.'

'It will have to wait, Detective.' Prissy and prim in his perceived superiority Blake unfastened the button of his stylishly tailored jacket. 'The captain and I need to discuss a few things.'

'We are on a priority investigation.'

'As I can guess it is about the deceased officer, then we are of a like mind. John Raglan was obviously killed by a stray bullet meant for Christine Doran, and there are several people who have spoken to me saying you are concerned more with investigating a fallen officer than wrapping his death up as an accident.'

'Who are these people,' Ryan demanded, and Blake curled his thin upper lip into a hard sneer.

'I'm not required to reveal my sources.'

'Sources my ass-'

'Detective Esposito.' Beckett's voice was quiet and controlled as she stared at Blake. She'd never liked him, but it went beyond the usual distrust any cop had of Internal Affairs. There was something about him that always said he seemed to hold back so he could make others look like fools. She tugged off her leather gloves, slapped them against her palms. 'Captain Holmes, I am not required to report to IA when a retired officer is gunned down.'

'You have no proof of that. Clearly someone was trying to get rid of Christine. Being the wife of a dirty cop would have that effect on some people.'

'Then why did they wait so long into Mike's incarceration to get at her? If they'd been trying to hit her, why wouldn't they do it after the initial crash? Why wait until she was loaded into an ambulance? And why would a stray bullet hit John Raglan square in the chest if they were aiming for someone else?'

Beckett held up the Ballistic report. 'That shot came from an army-issue sniper rifle, and calculating the angle of the shot, it was from the northeast corner building of the intersection where the accident happened, from the eighteenth floor. An angle like that with that many people and given the crappy weather forecast from yesterday? That isn't some crackpot on a revenge mission against Mike, that is a military-trained gunman who would no more miss a shot than a heroin addict misses his morning fix.'

'Let me see that report, it might-'

'Captain Holmes.' Montgomery used the power of his quietly authoritative voice to quell any potential bickering. 'The detectives aren't looking to make trouble, they want to figure out why someone wanted John Raglan silenced, and Christine Doran incapacitated.'

'Then they should be looking into potential suspects.'

'You know the best way to know the killer is to find is motives, which lies within the victim. Given the circumstances, I'd say my detectives homicide investigation is spot on with looking into links between Christine, Mike and John.'

Holmes sniffed, rose. 'If you find anything I would like to be informed.'

He turned and left stiffly, not bothering with the politeness of closing the door, making Montgomery look at his detectives.

'Now that's curious, isn't it?'

'Why is IA worried about the death of a long-retired cop revealing too much dirty laundry,' Beckett said aloud and the others nodded. 'They know something we don't and obviously should, if they're that nervous.'

'Then let's find it.' Montgomery put on his reading glasses, took out a fresh pen for updating his notes on Raglan's death. 'Esposito what have you got?'


	12. Everybody's Got aStory byAmanda Marshall

'Jerkoff,' Ryan muttered, sneering at Blake's retreating back as he headed for the elevator. 'How'd that little prick get to be a cop?'

'Easy, IA's full of pricks like him. He's their bread-and-butter,' Esposito replied.

'Why don't we worry about more important things,' Montgomery suggested, motioning for them to sit down; he waited to speak until Adam was in the room with freshly printed papers in his hands.

'Sorry, had to reload the printer,' he said, plunked himself down beside Esposito at the end of the row of detectives. 'Did I miss anything?'

'Not at all, Adam,' Montgomery replied. 'Detective Esposito was just about to update us on what you've found.'

'First, I wouldn't mind getting a clearer picture on Mike,' Adam requested. 'He was before my time.'

'Mike Doran was a narco at the Seventy-Second but when he made captain, administration moved him into the Narc bureau at the Twenty-Third precinct, and Timo Ross was his protege, if you like,' Ryan explained. 'Timo started dating Angela, Mike's daughter and only child, and to avoid anything sticky, Timo transferred to the Seventy-Second and began to work with Captain Frank Cowlan in the Narc bureau. The two precincts worked together to get Julio Robinson incarcerated, as Cowlan and Doran were pals from their beat-days and pooled their resources when they had a big bust to look at, but the collar went to Cowlan and Ross since they initiated the investigation.'

'About five months after Robinson went up to Five-Points, Timo went to Mike on some matter and according to Angela's personal diary, Timo came home right pissed off. A week later, his body was found beaten and broken.' Esposito heaved a sigh of regret. 'After that, Cowlan retired and Mike took his spot at the Seventy-Second running the Narc bureau. Eight years later, Angela figured it out what Timo learned - her father was part of a drug ring that involved other cops bought by Robinson - confronted her father and she wound up dead. Same method, same location as Timo.'

'Damn that's cold.' Adam shuddered., thinking of the conversation between Mike and Raglan. 'His only child, a daughter no less and he treated her like a loose end to be snipped off.'

'He's got a couple other things that should have been snipped off,' Montgomery commented. 'What else did you find?'

'We talked to Fuqua and she agreed that convo gave us enough juice for the entire transcripts of all John Raglan's outgoing calls for both his phones-'

'Sorry, both phones?'

'The boy wonder here,' Esposito jerked his thumb at Adam, 'figured it out Raglan had a second pay-as-you-go burner phone that he topped up with his credit card and we got the transcripts for that phone too.'

'You've been busy,' Montgomery commented. 'All that before three pm in a single day?'

'Having Fuqua on our side is proving to be most expeditious,' Beckett pointed out, 'or we'd still be waiting with our thumbs up our asses.'

'We've examined the transcripts,' Esposito continued, 'and we found this. He called another burner thirty-seven seconds after he ended the call from Mike.'

He handed around copies of the transcript he and Adam had looked at, let them read what they found. He watched their faces as the stone weight settled into his belly once more.

_Frank, it's John. Just talked to Mike, he's tweaking_

_Over what now? Not enough time in the exercise yard?_

_He told me you went to see Christine, started asking about money. What did you do Frank?_

_Nothing, just commented on how nice her apartment was, how it must be nice on her florist salary and wondered if she'd come into any other income recently._

_Jesus Christ, how fucking dumb are you? Christine's smart she could go poking around Mike's email accounts, his internet banking statements._

_She won't do that, she'll be too distraught_

_Distraught?_

_Mike's become a liability, just like Montrose and just like that fucking Boy Scout Ross did too, and just like what happened to Ross' bitch when she started nosing around where she shouldn't have. Liabilities in our line of work are unacceptable_

_What are you going to do?_

_Leave it to me. You always leave the dirty work to me if you want the results, right? _

_Right. Thanks Frank._

_Don't go out tonight, hang at home. Order a pizza or cook for yourself, and I'll call you when I have it in place._

They all sat silently, letting this new information sink in. It was impossible to have believed it when Mike Doran went up-river for his multiple sins, but now seeing two other cops - everyone knew the Frank mentioned had to be Frank Cowlan - calmly discussing the murder of that cop was positively stomach-curdling.

Finally it was Montgomery who broke the silence. 'Adam, who knows you accessed the information?'

'Only Fuqua who gave me the warrant, the tech at the phone company who gave me the transcripts via private download.'

'You accessed no email no personal internet browsing while you did this?'

'Sir, I may not have the symbols anymore but I still think like a cop.' Adam pokered up, sat straight in his spot. 'This is a sensitive case and its probably links to the murder of my father and Beckett's mother, not to mention four other people have died and one had an attempt made on her life. I accessed the file via NYPD sealed software that is only accessible to-'

'Adam, easy,' Ryan murmured, noting how high the ex-officer's colour had gotten. 'It's the captain's job to be thorough.'

'So is mine,' he fired back, then clenched his jaw. 'No disrespect meant, Captain.'

'None taken.' As his own officers acted the same way when they had nothing to hide, Montgomery gave him a curt nod. 'Adam, you and Esposito traced the burner cell Raglan called?'

'Yes, but we'd need more to confirm it was Cowlan.'

'We need to divided and conquer sir,' Beckett said, drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair. 'We have two fresh homicides that are linked, and those are linked to four more murders that one of those freshly-dead bodies participated in, and all of those have an underpinning I_ know_ is some how linked to Jarrad Brennan and Johanna Beckett's murders.'

Hearing her refer to her mother with such distance had them all rocking back a little but, but Beckett kept going. 'I think if we dig deep enough into Mike and John working together at the Seventy-Second, which is the same time as when my mother was murdered we will find out the answers to a lot of questions

'Then we get some shovels and dig,' Montgomery said. 'Ryan, you're going to work with Adam digging out the old cases. Beckett, Esposito, I want you two on Raglan and Mike's homicide.'

'Question, sir.' Ryan lifted his hand like a schoolboy. 'How are we going to talk to Cowlan without tipping him off? Clearly, he's smart if he's been running something since Timo Ross died. And what we have on him is slim as it is.'

'What if we brought in Cowlan to talk to him about Christine?' Adam suggested, all eyes turning to him as he spoke. 'We know Mike and Cowlan were tight, it'd be weird if we didn't, right?'

'You're right,' Beckett agreed. 'Adam, why don't you tag-team him with me?'

'Me?'

'Yeah, why not you?' Esposito added, his brain following Beckett's line of thinking. 'If we have the civilian present it makes it seem like we're focusing on their deaths, not what we're really looking for.'

'You don't think he'll smell anything?'

'Not if we play it right. Adam, the civilian liaison bureau does newsletters, right? Why don't we make him think we're interviewing him for that?'

Adam nodded. 'I do a lot of those interviews myself, so it would look on the level.'

'Even better. Reach out to him this afternoon, schedule it for eight-am sharp tomorrow.' Montgomery looked at his troops. 'Right now, go back to the conference room and get me whatever more you can out of the phone and financial records. Kate, Javi, you two go back to the crime scene. Use the ballistics report to get into the building they say the shot came from. We are going to need concrete evidence before long if we want to keep the higher-ups from

'What about IAB, sir?' Ryan asked.

'Leave them to me. You all have jobs, go and do them. Don't give these sons of bitches anymore ammo to work with.'

They left the officer and Beckett followed Esposito to his desk for his winter gear. 'You think we'll find something?' he asked her.

'If we do, we'll have more than we do now. If we don't, it will make boxing them in harder but so much more satisfying when we beat them.'


	13. I Turn to You by Christina Aguilera

After the canvass of the shooter's building - as predicted, they found nothing usable the CSU had overlooked - Esposito had called it a night but Beckett went back to the Twelfth. She'd seen the name Montrose pop up in the conversation between Cowlan and Raglan, and the chorus of 'what if's' had been circling in her brain since.

When she reached Homicide, she nearly bumped into sturdy Julian, the desk officer, walking past with his nose buried in the latest Nikki Heat.

'Good read, isn't it?' she asked, and he grinned.

'Hard to put down. You got a visitor.'

Beckett glanced past Juilian's considerable frame, saw Lanie was sitting in Castle's chair, also reading Nikki Heat. 'Was my hubby here handing out copies?'

'No, sir, Detective.' Julian paused, flashed a mischievous grin. 'He had a box of them sent over this morning when you were locked in with paper work on the Raglan deal. All proceeds go to the survivor's fund.'

Beckett shook her head as she went over to her desk, patted her friend's shoulder. 'You need to come up for air, Lanie?'

'Hey, girl!' Lanie marked her page with a metal bookmark clip and tucked it into her bag. As she was in her flat winter boots, when she rose to hug Beckett, she came up shorter than usual. 'Tough couple of days, huh?'

'They going to get tougher yet.'

'So, did you want to go the boy-suck-over-martinis route or at-home-with-red-meat-and-wine?'

'The second one.'

'Okay.' Ever a patient one - Lanie had to be to mother three children under ten and stay sane - she picked up her bag and looped her arm through Beckett's. 'If your hubby is there, we can talk about the other stuff now.'

'Not now. In the car. I have to Lanie, it's...I have to.'

Lanie gave her the space she needed to get her thoughts together. She remembered the torture she'd gone through when she'd learned she was pregnant with Carey, her decision to keep it from all her friends except for Ryan for as long as she did. It was the reason she never judged Beckett in her decisions regarding her mother's case, because she knew what it was like to not want to discuss things she wasn't ready to discuss.

'You're driving,' she informed her friend, and tossed her the keys.

Lanie caught the keys. 'I'm an employee of the OCME, not the NYPD, am I allowed to do that?'

'Yes, as this officer feels that her current emotional condition means she is not to be trusted behind the wheel.'

Lanie lifted her eyebrows, but said nothing, just got behind the wheel, and adjusted the seat and mirrors for her diminutive stature.

The moment the door to her Crown Vic was closed, Beckett let it spill. 'Lanie, I...I don't know how to tell you what your friendship means to me, how you're always there for me even when I try to shit on it or snap or bitch or whatever, and I feel so horrible that this huge thing is about to explode in my life again and I'm not letting you in.'

'Katie, I understand sweetie. I do. I tried to shove a lot of people out of my life when I was pregnant with Carey.'

'This isn't the same, Lanie,' Beckett said as she turned over the engine.

'No, it's not, but I know that you're feeling scared and alone, like if you tell people it's real and there's nothing you can do to stop it. And you wake up in cold sweaty panic every night wondering if you're doing the right thing. If you've felt even one of those things, then I understand.'

Beckett watched Lanie brake at a red-light on Thirty-Eighth, chewed her thumbnail. 'God, Lanie. I am an awful friend. An excellent cop, but I am a seriously horrible friend.'

'No, you're not.' Lanie reached over, squeezed her friend's shoulder.

'Light's green.'

The doctor gently accelerated, debated on what she should tell Lanie. A quick glance at her friend's profile, so calm and serene as she turned onto West Fourteenth street, and Beckett knew she would hate herself forever if she didn't take the hard road on this one.

'Lanie, Raglan's death is linked to my mother's. The same with Mike Doran, the same with Angela Doran and Timo Ross, and another cop's death. They're all connected.'

'I figured Raglan was, the way he died. No one gets randomly picked off by a sniper.'

'Are you forgetting the oh-three Beltway sniper?'

'Okay, bad example. How are they linked?'

'They...god, I don't know how much I can say without breaking every last rule of being a cop I promised to uphold.'

'Katie.' Lanie turned soulful brown eyes to her friend, eyes that had begun to fill up. 'I won't ask that of you.'

'But I have to ask that of myself, I can't let her death swallow me whole again and the way I do that is by telling my friends about my emotions. I have to keep my people in my life, all of it,' she said, punctuating her words by karate-chopping the dashboard with the blade of her hand. 'Or else, why the hell am I fighting so hard?'

'You fight because you are Kate Beckett, and she is a fighter. Her mother taught her that, and her father.'

'God, my dad!' Beckett looked at Lanie in horror. 'I haven't even called my dad!'

'I'm sure he will understand.'

'But he's one of my people, I should have told him.'

'Kate, you will, when the time is right.'

'I can't suck him back in to, can't risk everything he's built up for himself again. He's sober, fourteen years sober, and he has a relationship with a woman he loves, he's got a son-in-law, a grandson-in-law, grandchildren, maybe great grandchildren soon. He's got his life back and I don't want him to lose it again because I wasn't good enough to catch these bastards in their own trap.'

She was rambling, and a rational part of her knew that too but her heart was in charge for the moment and Lanie, God bless her, was letting her get it all out. 'If I want to catch them, I have to be the best, and if I'm drowning in my own self-pity, all these choking emotions, there's no way I can be the best.'

'Now you're just talking nonsense girl.' Lanie shook her head sternly. 'Look, we're almost here.'

'Good.'

As Beckett had turned the colour of day-old porridge, Lanie was glad it didn't take much to park and get her friend inside. The moment they opened the door to the loft, Castle was there in a flash.

'Hey, I didn't know you were coming by, Lanie,' he said, as he watched his wife walk in like a zombie.

'Kate needed some girl time, so I drove her home and she started telling me about the Raglan case.' Lanie told him what Beckett had told her, and both watched their friend walk a few more steps then stop in her tracks.

'Yeah.' Beckett looked around the loft like she was inside an alien spacecraft before her troubled eyes landed on her husband. 'I told her all this shit about my feelings, and then what's left for you Rick? Where are the kids?'

'Shane Shane came and took the kids tonight to spend with him and Alexis.'

'Right. You told me that and I couldn't even remember it. I'm a bad mother.'

'No, Kate,' Lanie gasped, genuinely shocked she would say such a thing. 'No, you aren't!'

'I'm a horrible friend, a selfish wife and a bad mother. And...and...'

Castle watched as Beckett turned to face him, his expression patient and loving, and she crumbled; her face was first and then her body as she began to sob hot bitter tears of frustration. She sank to her knees and he was there, holding her and pulling her close. He felt her buck against him which only made him hold her even tighter.

'I can't do this again and be wrong, Rick,' she wept against his shoulder.

'You're not. You are going to win.'

'At what cost?'

'Hey look at me.' Castle cupped her face in his hands, stared into her eyes. 'You are a wonderful friend, a great wife and you are an amazing mother. You are all of those things because you are extraordinary, and you are going to win.'

'Here.' Lanie frowned in thought, then dug into her purse, rooting around until she found what she wanted. 'Want a lollipop?'

Beckett looked up, saw Lanie had found two Chuppa-Chupps Minis in her bag and was holding them out to her. 'A lollipop?'

'Finn loves them. Carey gave him one when he bumped his knee once, and Carey told him you can't be sad with a lollipop after his tears had dried. Want to test his theory?'


	14. I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash

'Carey's right, these do help.'

Still raw from her breakdown, Beckett sat with Lanie in the living room; they sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace, each sucking on their bits of hard candy on a stick. The simplicity of it was settling her stressed out nerves better than any drug she could think of.

Except maybe one, she thought, looking to her husband in the kitchen.

'He loves the strawberry acid and cola ones too.' Lanie rolled hers in her mouth. 'Gives me an excuse to buy them, too.'

'RJ prefers cookies. I don't know what I'd do without you two ,' she murmured, 'if you weren't in my life.'

'Knowing what you do now, would you have moved sooner on Castle?'

'Nope. Because I wouldn't appreciate it that he would do anything for me, especially when it comes to my mom's case.'

'Dinner's on, girls,' Castle called from the kitchen and Beckett breathed deeply as she scented it. 'I made one of our son's favourites.'

'Yes you did,' Beckett said, and she nearly started weeping again when she saw the platters of spaghetti and meat-balls and toasted baguette with garlic butter and mozzarella. 'Is it too late to call?'

'No, Kate, it's barely six. Shane only picked them up at four-thirty. They will both be awake.'

Beckett wanted to hold them close, to see her son's eyes shine bright when he asked her if she got the bad guys, and watch Jojo hold her brother's hand as he helped her walk over for a hug. But tonight she need time for herself; the last thing she wanted to do was trouble her children, especially RJ because he was the kind of person who would share the emotional burden of his loved ones so they didn't have to hurt as much.

So tonight she would call them and let her imagination paint the picture for her. She by-passed the set and waiting table for the phone on the island, dialed Shane and Alexis' home number. The lady of the house herself picked up and Beckett turned away so that Castle and Lanie wouldn't see her swiping away tears yet.

'Hey, is this Mumum or Daddy?'

'It's Mumum, almost-Doctor Weaver.'

'Hey, are you okay?'

'Yeah, Lex, I'm fine, just the Raglan case getting to me,' Beckett reassured the ever-sensitive Alexis. 'Where's your brother and sister?'

'Shane is giving Jojo a bath and RJ is helping him, which as you can guess means RJ is telling him what to do all the time. Hang on.'

Beckett waited while she heard the noises on the other end of the phone and wondered how long it would be before she and Castle heard their oldest baby with her own little one. She heard the splashing of water, Shane's deep velvety voice and RJ's chirping one; there was a small shuffle of noise and then there was her baby boy.

'Hi-hi, Mumum! Alessis say you are sad because you haven't caught the bad guys yet?'

'Yes, my little prince, it's making me sad.'

'Don' be sad Mumum, you are the best! You will get him, and you will throw him in the jail and it will go cuh-link and we will have cookies and ice cuh-ream and all kinds of yummy things to celebrate.'

'RJ, I love you so much,' she replied with as much passion as she could give to him. 'You are the best little boy I know.'

'Aw Mumum, I love you too. Would you like to say I love you to Jojo too?'

Beckett caught the drip of tears on her cheeks with the tip of her index finger. 'Yes, please, baby, I would like that very much.'

'Okay. Shane where is the loud button?'

A few seconds later and Beckett could tell she was on speaker phone. The sounds of water moving were louder and RJ was asking Alexis if they could have popcorn. And there was her bumblebee, chattering and babbling away.

'Hello? Jojo, you there?'

'Mumum? See Mumum?'

'Baby girl, I'm on the phone.'

'No see!'

'Here, Jojo.' Alexis held the phone closer. 'Talk on the phone, Jojo, Mumum's on the phone.'

'Mumum talk?'

'Yeah, Jojo, she is talking to you,' RJ encouraged his sister.

'Hi Mumum! Pashin'!

'I hear you splashing, are you my little bumblebee or are you a little mermaid?' Beckett laughed.

'Pash, pash, pash. Dodo pashin!'

'Yeah, Jojo's splashing.'

'Love Mumum.'

It nearly broke her entirely. 'I love you too, Jojo, so much. Let me talk to Alexis again.'

'O-kay. Sis!'

There was another shuffle again; the children's voices became muted, and Alexis came back on the phone. 'Mom, are you okay?'

'Are you near the kids?'

'No, and Shane knows something is up, but he's going to stay with the kids. I'm coming over.'

'Alexis-'

'I'm coming over,' she repeated in a tone that so mirrored Beckett's when she meant business it was easy to forget they weren't biological mother and daughter. 'I'll see you soon.'

'I love you, Mom.'

'I love you too.'

Beckett hung up and turned back around, where she saw Lanie typing away on her cellphone, politely tuning her out. It made her smile a little more at the simple understanding of such a good friend. 'Where did Rick go?'

'Oh something about checking in with Paula. I think he's in his office.'

She nodded, went into the space closed off with books. The sight of him, fingers flying over the keys of his scarred and battered laptop that he refused to part with, brow furrowed so the scar above his left eye stood out in sharp relief, filled her with pure love for this man who had blown into her life and blown up her life with laughter and love.

Gripping the back of his chair, she used the element of surprise and spun him around. He had only a few seconds to be fluster, for then her mouth was covering his, her hands sliding through his hair. 'I love you, Richard Alexander Castle,' she murmured against his lips.

'I love you too, Katherine Louise Beckett-Castle.'

'I wouldn't be able to face again this without you, if I didn't have this to come home to.' She picked up his left hand in hers, twined their fingers so their wedding rings clinked. 'We're in the gold and the shit together, right? Isn't that what Shane always says to Alexis?'

'Yes, it is.'

'She's coming over, by the way.'

'I thought she might,' he replied, holding his wife's shoulder's steady so that she didn't falter when he stood up. 'There's enough spaghetti if she wants some for herself.'

* * *

><p>When Lanie had gone home to her babies, and Alexis had come over for the proof herself that Beckett wasn't having a nervous breakdown from the case and gone home to her own husband and her siblings Castle had taken his wife upstairs to their room and gently stripped her down to her underwear, tucked them both into bed so she could feel his skin against hers. He knew she wouldn't sleep yet, but that getting her into bed in the most innocent sense of the phrase would help.<p>

'Kate, you need rest,' he softly reminded her.

'I know, my body wants to shut it down but my brain keeps clicking and clicking. I have to lean on a decorated retired captain from a whole different department and precinct tomorrow morning. And my partner in it is an ex-cop now working in the C-L bureau.'

'You've worked with worse. Don't say me.'

'I wasn't going to. You're actually better than some cops I've been ham-strung into working with.'

'Are you bringing in any outside help yet? K-Pow or Geoffs or Newman?'

'Not yet. We need more solid intel, to back it up safely so that nothing gets missed or lost. I'm not losing this one.'

'Okay, okay. It's time to rest now, Kate. You need sleep.'

'Yes. I'll sleep now.'

Beckett closed her eyes, and even in the pitch black dark of the night in their room, she could feel him there beside her. Always there, right beside her.

* * *

><p><strong>JANUARY 5TH<strong>

She woke like she'd been fired from a cannon. 'Rick,' she hissed, slapping his shoulder. 'Rick, what time is it?'

'Too early.'

Beckett looked at the clock. Four-fifty-three. Perfect, she would be at the precinct for six am. 'I have an idea about what it could be that links them all together.'

'Whoopee.'

'Rick, do you understand this could be the missing link, the thing that tells me once and for all why my mother died? Why Adam's father died?'

Castle peeled his eyes open. 'I'll get dressed, come with you.'


	15. Little Green Bag by George Baker

'Javi, your phone is ringing.'

Esposito groaned, reached past Meredeth to the night stand where his Blackberry was buzzing away. He and Meredeth had fallen asleep crossways in the bed the previous night after making love, and this morning the extra distance only made him crankier.

'Espo.'

'It's Beckett.'

'What time is it?'

'Almost five. Get your ass to the precinct.'

He groaned, rolled to his back. 'Why do you want me there at the ass-crack of oh-dawn-hundred?'

'Because we have a whole lot to go over today and I think I've figured out how to bring all of these cases together.'

'Oh, you are a bitch, Kate. Fine, I'll be there in twenty.'

'Make it fifteen.'

Esposito clicked off, then went to reach for Meredeth and found she'd already left the bed. Looking over he saw she'd slid out to put on her kimono. 'Where are you going?' he asked her.

'If you're starting this early, that means a long day ahead, and I have waffle batter in the fridge. You and you coworkers need a solid breakfast.'

'I love you so fucking much, Mere.'

Meredeth leaned down, took his face in her hands. 'I love you so fucking much Javi. Go get a shower.'

Fifteen minutes later, Esposito was dressed and ready to head out to learn just why Beckett sounded like she'd downed a dozen triple espresso so early in the bloody morning. In his haze of thought, he tripped over one of Arturo's massive rope toys which had him cursing under his breath.

'Damn dog, you should learn to pick up your toys,' he grumbled, then glanced up when he saw his daughter's door open and Tessi came out, bleary-eyed and smacking her gums. 'Princess, why are you up?'

'I have to wizz, Daddy.' She blinked hard, looked at her father. 'You have to go to work?'

'Yes, I do, Tessi.'

'Oh. You're going to catch the bad guys, the ones who bought the killer that hurt Kate's mami, right?'

'That's right, princess.'

Esposito watched her disappear into her room, then come back with a little scrap of paper. 'What's this?' he asked, unfolding it.

'It's a turtle, Daddy. Dell told me they are great protectors.'

'That they are.' He looked at his little girl. 'Tessi, are you worried the bad guys might get me?'

'A little.'

'Well, they won't now that I've got this. Come here.' He crouched down, and Tessi gave her father a hug and a kiss. 'I love you so much, princess.'

'I love you too, Daddy. Now I really gotta wizz!'

Tessi darted into the bathroom while he folded up the picture, and tucked it into his wallet, next to the first picture he ever took of Meredeth and himself together. He headed for the stairs and when he came up behind Meredeth, who was putting the lid on a container and popping into the thermal bag.

'Gimme one for good luck.'

Meredeth turned around and laid her lips on his. 'Always, baby. Make sure Kate eats.'

* * *

><p>It surprised Adam a little that Beckett was calling him in so early, but then again, that he'd been tagged at all for this case when he was a civilian had thrown him off his game. Obviously she needed him doing more paper work again; if there was one thing most cops hated, it was paperwork, but Homicide cops seemed to doubly hate it.<p>

He'd stepped onto the elevator from the underground parking garage and saw a hand keep the door open so he could squeeze on, and Adam grinned when he saw it was the lady herself.

'Morning, boss,' he greeted her.

'Morning Adam. Nice to see you're at least half-awake, unlike the other members of my team.'

Adam shrugged. 'Being on a lot of night shifts while I was on patrol means

'You're like Rick that way. You ready for the interview this morning?'

'I think so, though mostly, I just want to know why we're all here so early.'

The doors dinged open onto Homicide and before either of them set foot out of the lift car, they could smell it, clearly as sharks scenting blood in the water. They literally followed their noses to the conference room and Adam felt his eyes pop like daisies out of his head.

'Oh, wow.'

The conference table had had one end entirely covered with Meredeth treats - not just the waffles she'd made, with the option of lingonberry jam, whipped cream or butter for toppings but also small tupperware container filled with cubed cheese, another one with fresh fruit; on top of that there were two two-quart bottles of ginger-mint lemonade, and a few smaller bottles of her signature red-raspberry iced tea.

Esposito and Ryan, and oddly enough the captain, were all there, filling picnic reusable plastic picnic plates, and Esposito looked up with a grin. 'That's what Meredeth said the first time she saw me naked,' he replied with a wink as he handed Beckett a plate.

'Dude, this looks really good, and I want to not throw it up,' Ryan said, stealing a piece of Swiss from his friend's plate. 'But as much fun as the treats are, it still doesn't explain why we're all here at barely five-thirty in the morning.'

'Food first,' his partner insisted, and handed Beckett a plate with a waffled already on it. 'Meredeth's orders.'

'You are one lucky bastard,' Montgomery comment as he sipped the bottle of iced tea he'd snagged for himself. 'And I am curious as well, Detective.'

'Okay, I was thinking on this last night,' she replied with her mouthful; manners be damned, once she'd smelled Meredeth's home-cooking, she was powerless to ignore it. 'It's got two parts, before my mother's murder and afterward. We've gotten all the before and that's all nice and organized, but we need to dig into the before, and I believe we'll find it by looking into the murder of Officer Matthew Montrose out of the seven-two.'

'How do you figure, that?' Montgomery asked.

'His case was the one that got Roman Moore arrested, right? What if we look into the records on his murder and see if we can move back a step in time there as well, to figure out the why of why someone wanted Matthew Montrose dead. We figure out why someone wanted him dead, we have our conspirators and that gets the dominos bumping into place.'

'We need more to go on than a hunch, Beckett.'

'Okay, then how about this? Mike Doran and John Raglan were seen going to Records together, but one was narco, one was Homicide. The potential this is about a case they had overlapping isn't entirely a bluff. So why not follow through and get those records, see what we're dealing with over Montrose's case, which links to Moore, which links to my mother and her colleagues, which pulls in Adam's father.' Beckett gestured with her hand like a ball was bumping down the stairs. 'We need to find what set that chain off and I'm willing to bet Meredeth's very fine waffles it's whatever Montrose figured out that got him killed and Moore was just a sucker for them.'

As it was the theory that made the most sense of all the information they'd culled, they chewed and nodded along with her reasoning. 'So what's the move this morning,' Esposito asked as he gulped down pastry and strawberries.

'You and Ryan are going to the seven-two for the records, while Adam and I take Cowlan in interview. Not that kind of interview,' she said hastily before the boys could get their dander up. 'It's a bluff of sorts as well.'

'That's a dangerous line, Kate,' Ryan observed.

'All I'm doing is asking some carefully worded newsletter questions,' Adam said. 'If he gets stressed out over those, then we have bigger fish to fry than getting into records at the seven-two.'

'Right now, we're going to finish this delicious meal,' Montgomery told them, 'then Ryan and Esposito, you two are going over to the seven-two to pull any records you can on Montrose. If the officer on the desk gives you static, go back with a warrant. You know Fuqua will give you one. Beckett you are going to look out for Adam in case things get sticky with Cowlan.'

Beckett shook her head. 'I have every faith in Adam that he can do this, sir.'

'Glad to hear it.' Montgomery gave her plate an avaricious stare. 'Kate, you haven't eaten enough.'

'Sir, I-'

'I'm your captain but I'm also a father, and you're a mother. Would you let RJ and Jojo play if they'd skipped their breakfast like that?'

'No, sir.'

Beckett looked down at her plate, then added, 'If any of you gets the bright idea that this is a joke for others to hear, you're sorely mistaken.'

'Eat your breakfast, Kate,' was all Esposito said.


	16. Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J

'Don't be nervous.'

'I'm not.'

'Adam, you may have been a cop but you were hardly more than a rookie when you got the untimely boot.' Beckett looked at him with seasoned eyes as they walked into the Civilian Liaison Bureau. 'You're about to interview a hardened criminal hiding behind a badge. You'd be stupid if you weren't a little nervous.'

'In here.'

Adam directed them towards the boardroom where they'd met only the day before; hell it felt like that had been last week. He felt the waffles, fruit and cheese he'd gleefully scarfed down rise slightly in his gorge as he reviewed his questions. He could hear his father's voice in his head as clearly as if Jarrad Brennan was standing beside him.

_Adi, you know how to handle bullies. You've done that your whole life. This man is no different than Billy Hofstedt turning you ball-side up to shake your lunch money out of you. Get him back the way you always have, with your wits and brains._

God he missed his father, Adam thought with a small ache. He'd died on a morning like this, too, frozen like the sixth circle of hell and the wind wailing outside the windows like a banshee. Adam had called him up to check if they were still on for basketball, and when there was no answer at ten in the morning, Adam figured his dad was at yoga like he'd always done on Thursday mornings.

When he'd called again at two-thirty there was still no answer but Adam knew his father did his groceries on Thursday so he was probably at the Martindale's near his apartment and had switched his cellphone off like he always did when he went grocery shopping. Jarrad was dyslexic, thus reading labels had always been an extra task for him and he didn't like distractions like his cellphone going off. Finally, Adam had gotten off shift and decided enough was enough, he was going to roust his pops out.

Then he'd unlocked the door to Jarrad's flat and the stench of it had hit him. Fresh death, no more than a few hours old, and Adam had raced through the small space like a maniac trying to find him and had his world shatter around his feet when he'd ripped back the shower curtain of the microscopic bathroom and seen his father's choked-out lifeless body hanging there by a noose of his own bedsheets.

'Adam. Hey, come on back here.'

He glanced over, saw Beckett looking at him with worried eyes. He wondered if she knew she looked at him like his mother had when he'd first become a cop, as if she was trying to make sure he could handle it.

'Thanks, I'm good.'

'I made coffee. You'll be fine, and I'm here to back you up if you need it. Only,' she amended, 'if you think you need it.'

'I was thinking about my dad, how I found him dead and everything he's given us after he died for this case. I will not screw this up.'

As the determination in his quiet, husky voice was strong enough to move mountains, she nodded, glanced over when the door opened by Gibson and they got a look at Frank Cowlan, retired narcotics captain of the Seventy-Second Precinct.

He was huge, a bull of a man and dark as strong coffee. He looked more like a wrestler than a cop, until the eyes staring out from thick dark eyebrows, the only hair he had on his head, leveled his opponent with a single glare.

'Detective Kate Beckett.' Cowlan's voice rumbled like thunder. 'Or may I call you Nikki Heat?'

'Nikki Heat is my husband's creation, I'm all me.' Beckett said it in a tone that told Cowlan in no uncertain terms she was the bad cop. 'And this isn't my show to run today.'

'Right, right, it's for the ex-cop.'

Adam wanted to bare his teeth and snarl at Cowlan for that extra-long beat he gave 'ex' but instead gestured to one of the conference room chairs by the table. 'Please, have a seat.'

'So, you're after a little snapshot of a big bad cop for the kiddies, huh?' Cowlan gave a little laugh. 'Every other teenager these days wants to be a cop or a CSU thanks to those friggin TV shows. You came from that generation didn't you?'

'My father was a cop, just like his father and his father before him.'

'First washout though, huh?'

'All due respect, Captain,' Beckett stepped in, leaning forward in her spot from beside Adam, 'this isn't the reason you were asked here. If you can't respect the job Civilian Liaison Brennan is doing today, then it is better for you to leave.'

It was a gamble but Beckett knew cops like Cowlan weren't the kind to walk away or back down, not when they had to prove whose dick swung lowest to the ground. She watched him adjust the perfect knot of his tie, and fold his hands.

'What can I tell you?'

'Let's start with your early years on the force. How did you decide the narcotics bureau was where you wanted to make your career?'

'I grew up in the projects, boy, and watched my friends and their families get torn apart by drugs. My daddy said to me, son if you want to do something useful with your life, you find a way to get that trash off the streets.'

'Did you have university or college training before you went into the police academy?'

'I went to a community college, did courses on criminal justice and psychology. No way can you stop criminals if you can get inside their heads and mess with them.'

'Agreed, sir, first thing I learned in my crim-psych at the academy,' Beckett agreed placidly even as her gut churned.

'I'm sure you've also lost friends on the job, which has to be one of the hardest things in the Narc bureau. The temptations that you're surrounded with could make a lesser man very indulgent.'

_I'll be damned,_ Beckett thought with pride, impressed with the size of Adam's brass balls. An ex-uniform going for the jugular like that of a decorated retired captain had to ride some serious boulders if he wasn't breaking into cold sweats.

Across the table, Cowlan returned Adam's smoothly asked question with just as smooth an answer. 'Every department of a police precinct has its own reputation to fight against, whether it's homicide or IA or the narcotics bureau. Yes, I've seen many cops fall victim to the very sins we swear to stamp out but part of our job is to offer outreach to those who need to get clean. Many cops have come back from the brink and become highly respected ranked officers.'

'Being a cop, you see your share of grief with victims as well. What advice would you offer to new cops who are facing the loss of a colleague?'

'That it's part of the job, but there are counselors and therapists who work with the department for a reason. This job takes a toll on the mind as well as the body and you need both to be a great police officer.'

'If I could, just interject here, I was terribly sorry to hear about the loss of your friend Mike Doran,' Beckett interrupted, and for the first time since he'd sat down, she saw a flicker in Cowlan's uncrackable exterior.

'Yes, such an untenable situation for his wife to be in. First her daughter dies then her husband goes to prison, then he's killed in prison.'

'Funny, how he's shanked in prison and on his way there your other old friend John Raglan gets picked off by a sniper.'

'Detective, I didn't come here to be interrogated.' Cowlan shifted in his seat, looked at Adam. 'If that's all you have to ask me about the newsletter, I'll take my leave.'

'Just one more quick question, sir.' All polite graciousness, Adam poise his pencil over his notepad full of quotes and comments. 'Any last advice you can offer the up and coming rookies already on the force?'

'Don't disrespect the chain of command or you will get eaten alive.' The cold edge of his voice was only discernible to a trained ear, and both Adam and Beckett heard it. 'There is structure and order for a reason.'

'Right. Thank you for your time, sir, I appreciate you coming in. I might have one or two more follow-ups to ask later in the week or maybe next Monday or Tuesday. I'm not on deadline until the twentyieth so I have time to go over the final draft with you for polishing.' Adam folded his notepad closed and stood up, ushered the man back towards Gibson's office. When he was back, he looked at Beckett who grinned like a fool.

'That was quite the interrogation you performed, Adam.'

'I didn't-'

'You gained his trust, you got him speaking freely about his opinions and more importantly, we got some excellent intel on Mike and John's deaths.'

'I don't follow you, Detective.'

'Trust me, you will.'


	17. Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin

'This is going to be hard.'

'Who ever said doing the right thing was easy?'

'Smartass,' Ryan grumbled good-naturedly as Esposito parked the car and they headed inside the Seventy-Second; like the Twelfth because it was one of the larger precincts that acted almost as a hub for the smaller ones in the area, it had its own record library to which external detectives had access.

They badged the receiving officer at the desk and he pointed them towards the Records room in the lower level. It struck Ryan as slightly ironic they would put Records in the basement where the archived documents were most vulnerable to water damage and other water-related damage like steam-rot or the like.

Of course, it also made it quite obvious to the officer on duty in Records someone was coming for them, as the corridor to the secured entrance was the only door at the end aside from a few mechanical or janitorial access doors so it didn't surprise them that even with the officer on duty half-asleep as he read the latest Belle Roarke novel. The placard beside the locked entrance told him and his partner this near-narcoleptic man was Detective-Sergeant George Elliott.

'DS Elliott?' Esposito demanded as he held up his badge.

'Yeah, what can I help you boys with?'

'I'm Detective Esposito, this is Detective Ryan, we're part of the team investigating the death of John Raglan.'

'Why would you need into our Records for that?'

'We believe his death is linked to the death of Mike Doran,' Ryan supplied, not like the shifty look of this officer obviously gone to seed. 'We think it could be motivated by something to do with a case they worked together.'

Elliott heaved a sigh, as if marking his place in his novel and passing them the sign-in-out book was some greatly inconvenient task that he was doing as a big favour to them. 'Search all you want. I was really sorry to hear about poor ol' Mikey.'

'Poor ol' Mikey?' Esposito repeated; the way the man said it had his instincts humming.

'Yeah, Mikey and me went to the Academy together, worked a little bit in our beat-days here in the seven-two.' Elliott eased his considerable bulk out of his ratty office chair to open the door, and the Ry-Sposito monster saw the man had a severe limp in his right knee. 'Then we was working together on a small-time drug-bust, trying to make a name for ourselves, right? I get shot in the knee cap and my career's done before I barely started. Meanwhile Mikey got a medal for saving my sorry ass and he's suddenly the up-and-coming hotshot, him and Cowlan together.'

'How interesting,' Esposito murmured under his breath to his partner as they were ushered back, and let his hand drift under his overcoat to check his weapon in his holster.

'Anyways, who are you after, again?'

'Any cases where Mike Doran and John Raglan worked together and got a solid arrest to close the case,' Ryan said.

'Huh. That'd be Interdepartmental Task Force. Row three, shelves four, five and six. Copier's back there, dime a page Machine makes change if you need it.'

They nodded and once Elliott had gone back to his chair and they went through the second steel door - this one uncoded - nearly groaned at the site of the shelves once the row was found. Stacks and stacks of boxes, all of them dated. Knowing there was no time for bullshit, Ryan got out his cell and texted Beckett discreetly as Esposito made a show of taking down the boxes and sifting through them.

'Think it'd be worth our while to look up that guy?' Esposito mumbled as Ryan typed _date for Raglan motive file_ and sent the message.

'Could be.'

Neither of them added aloud that the wheels were probably greased with the blood these dirty cops had spilled; if they were right and their radar was now picking up Elliott too, the last thing they needed was to have their cover blown.

Instead, Ryan looked at his cellphone when it chirped at him with a message back from Beckett - _M. Montrose, 8-7-97 go to Fuqua's chambers when done she'll point you in the wright direction_

'Our fearless leader is spending entirely too much time with Brennan,' Ryan decided as Esposito climbed up the ladder to check the dates on the boxes. 'Now she's sending coded messages too. As if we don't know to go and see Wright at the courthouse where Fuqua works.'

'His pops was murdered because of what he knows, and Adam got his eggs scrambled when his house was invaded,' Esposito reminded him as he searched for the appropriate box. 'Can you blame him for being paranoid?'

'Fair point. You see anything yet?'

'Are we looking for July eighth or August seventh?'

'Let's look for both.'

Esposito nodded, and passed down the July-97 box to Ryan, who put it over on one of the work stations and took August for himself.

'You think...' Ryan trailed off as his partner climbed down the ladder.

'Do I think what?'

'You think Beckett already knows what we're looking for and this is just to get us out of the way while she does something incredibly dangerous and foolhardy with Adam as her backup?'

'No, I think she wants us to prove she's right, so that it's once removed and not her chasing geese,' Esposito replied as he sat down at one of the work-tables and lifted the lid off the box. He frowned at what he saw. 'Kev, how are the files usually organized?'

'By case-code and then alphabetized by victim names, why?'

'Because this box is all one code. The same code.'

'What?'

Esposito pulled file after file out of the box, stacked them neatly on the table. 'These all have the same code on them, it's the same code as the bank account from that transcript of the call between Mike and Raglan.'

'Seriously?'

'Take a look.'

He handed over the last file he pulled from the box, and Ryan reached into his own file bag to pull a copy of the transcript out. It took him a few seconds to decode the Nato alphabet but when he had he saw the case file numbers and the Swiss bank account were identical.

'What the fuck is this?' he asked, half to himself and half to his partner.

'Whatever it is, it's big.'

'How the hell are we supposed to get all this information out of here without arousing suspicion?' Ryan hissed. 'There's like twenty pounds of case file here. Each!'

'I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about it.' Esposito looked around and his eyes landed on the photocopier, and wondered. 'What if we took the whole damn box, and bluffed our way out?'

'Are you fucking nuts, Javi?'

'What other option do we have? We need the files and if we go through channels, that will tie us up in bureaucratic tape and two we already said this is pertinent to our case, so if the Records officer tries to stop us, we can turn it around and ask him why he's interrupting us in a homicide investigation.'

'Or we can call Kate down and tell her we need her to help us look at the stuff.'

'No. We'll take it with us. Come on.'

Esposito restuffed his file box with the dossiers and picked them up, leaving a scrambling Ryan catching up. They moved briskly, keeping their pace fast enough to say they were on a timeline but not so fast they looked like they were absconding with stolen goods. They gave Elliott a passing nod and the man barely glanced up as they passed him, signing the log and walking out to the elevator; they stopped a floor short of the main level and using the side service access to leave the building to avoid any other nasty complications.

With their loot stowed in the back seat of the Crown Vic, Esposito turned the engine over and looked at his partner, began to laugh until they were howling like loons all the way back until they had tears streaming down their cheeks from the effort.

'Danny Ocean, eat your heart out,' Ryan gasped, scrubbing the heel of his hand over his eyes. 'Can't believe we actually did that.'

'Wonder what Beckett will look like when we show up with this unholy mess.'

* * *

><p>Back in the Records room, Detective Sergeant George Elliott took out his burner cellphone and dialed one of four numbers he called from there.<p>

'Frank, it's George.'

'You're alone, I hope.'

'Yeah. Just had two guys from the Twelfth waltz outta here with boxes. Saying they're looking at an old case being the link between Mike and Raglan's deaths.'

'We'll just let them play with their crayons awhile, George. Nothing to worry about.'

'I don't know, Frank-'

'Just trust me George.'


	18. Overkill by Colin Hay

While her boys drove off with the virtual paper bomb in their back seat, Beckett stood in Montgomery's office giving him an update that included the details of their morning meeting with Cowlan. Once finished, Montgomery looked at her, then over at Adam sitting on his sofa, then back to Beckett.

'You two pulled that off.'

'Yes sir,' she replied. 'Adam did a hell of a job, considering how formidable his opponent was.'

'Formidable, hell. I've known Frank Cowlan for a long time and he could make a statue wet his pants.'

'Thank you, Captain,' Adam replied, but I still don't understand what you meant this morning, Beckett, when you said that we got good intel on Mike and Raglan's deaths.'

Beckett pursed her lips gently in a pensive move as she sat down in a chair angled so she would be looking at both her captain and her civilian liaison. There were moments on this case, not often, when she was reminded however much potential Adam had, he hadn't been off the streets and in an investigative position when he'd been forced out.

'You've been keeping up with the case file, correct Adam?'

'Of course.'

'How did Cowlan seem to you this morning?' Beckett asked him conversationally. 'What kind of mood did he strike you as being in?'

'Snotty, condescending, thought he was doing us a great favour just by speaking to us like people.'

'That's part of it. When did he start to crack?'

'When you brought up that Mike was dead. He called it an untenable situation for Christine.' Adam looked to Montgomery. 'I read the file, you've known him a long time. If him and Mike were such good friends, why wasn't he the first one to comfort her when she got word that Mike was dead? Why would she call Raglan instead of her husband's old friend?'

'Those are the questions we have to ask now, Adam, you're one-hundred percent right about that. But he started to crack when you talked about professional misconduct and impropriety.'

'No, he didn't.'

'Yes, he did,' Beckett insisted, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. 'You had your face at your notebook, being the good little civilian reporter who gobbled up what he said as he said it, but he was tense when you asked him that. Why would that be?'

'Because IA raked him needlessly over the coals?'

'If I got the IA screws put to me,' Montgomery commented casually, 'and I'd done nothing to deserve it, I would be feeling irritated and annoyed. As Detective Beckett said, he was tense. He didn't become passionately defensive or annoyed, he put up the walls. What does that tell you?'

'Someone with walls has a secret they don't want others to see?'

'Bingo. So what would you-'

They were interrupted by the ringing of Beckett's cellphone and she saw the Caller-ID flash _Home_. 'Castle, not now, she started, then blinked as Ryan's voice interrupted her.

'Beckett, change of plans, we are working from here the rest of the afternoon.'

'Detective Ryan? Why are you at my house? Why aren't you here with the records you got from the seven-two?'

'Oh, we got them alright,' Ryan said in a tight but all-knowing tone. 'And believe me, you're going to want to see what the hell we found. Bring the captain and Adam too.'

'Sure you don't want me to stop for pizza and beer so my house guests won't go hungry?'

'Funny girl. Just get here, Kate. You need to be here.'

'Very well.'

Beckett hung up, then looked at them both, a coldness creeping into her fingers and toes that had nothing to do with the blasted January chill. 'The boys found something, and it must be big because they've requested we work from my home for the remainder of the afternoon. Your presence was requested as well, sir.'

'My presence was requested, by two second-grade detectives,' Montgomery said slowly, then blinked, remembered what had happened several years prior with Angela Doran's death, how the boys had requested home office meetings for that one as well. 'I can only give you an hour, Detective, as I do have other people working under my watch.'

'That should be sufficient, I think sir.'

'And if we're working from your home office,' he added, rising to get his overcoat, 'I think we'll do better than pizza and beer for cop fuel, Detective.'

* * *

><p>When she arrived home, Beckett was hit with two things - the scent of Meredeth's home-cooking and the sound of her children's voices in the living room. She glanced over and saw the Ry-Sposito monster cozily ensconced by the fireplace, Esposito sitting with RJ on his knee and Ryan walking around the coffee table with Jojo clutching his index fingers.<p>

'I'm sorry, I thought we were cops, not babysitter,' she said tersely, so it would stop the bleeding over of this nightmare into her home life, her children's lives. It was not to be when her little girl looked up and grinned, redirected Ryan so she was tugging him along behind her as she motored over to give her mother a welcome home hug.

'Mumum home! Why home? Niffy?'

'No, sweetheart.' Beckett crouched down and felt Jojo's little arms wrap around her neck, squeeze tight. 'I'm not sniffly.'

'No, Jojo, it's because Mumum and Adam and Dete'tive Ryan and Dete'tive Esposito have found something big and importan', and they can't risk letting the bad guys know about it,' RJ replied with such clarity that Beckett wanted to kiss her little boy a million times. 'Right Dete'tive Esposito?'

'That's exactly right, RJ.' Esposito held out his fingertips and he fed the birds with RJ, then put him on his feet. 'Your man's in his office, saving his Smart board for us to use today.'

'And while he's fussing with that, you're going to eat and talk,' Meredeth added from the kitchen. 'You're getting beef and bean enchiladas, or if you're a veggie-saurus, just bean.'

'First, I want to know what is going on,' Beckett demanded, releasing Jojo and standing up straight to pull off her winter gear. 'Why are we doing this from home, why not with the resources of the NYPD?'

'RJ, Jojo, cover your ears,' Esposito instructed them; when they'd complied, he turned to Beckett. 'Because we found a huge fucking landmine, that's why Kate. You were right, about Moore being the link, but this...this goes way deeper than an appeals case for a wrongly imprisoned man.'

'You've looked at the files?'

'Briefly, but even if we hadn't, one surface look at this and you know it's all kinds of wrong,' Ryan assured her.

'Can I uncover my ears, please?' RJ asked, looking at the grown-ups. He knew it was a very serious grown-up thing they were talking about related to his mother's work, and he knew from the look on his mother's face she needed a hug. 'Please?'

'Yeah, buddy, sorry.' Esposito took his little wrists and gently lowered his hands.

RJ slipped off of the man's lap and went over to his mother, gave her a hug around the hips. 'You are the best, you always catch the baddies. I love you.'

'I love you too, RJ.'

Meredeth appeared then out of the kitchen, as did Castle from his office; the former came over and took Jojo into her arms, jerked her head at RJ. 'Come on, big bro, why don't we head upstairs and find Max Power?'

'Mass, Mass, Mass,' Jojo chirped. 'Ah-Shay?'

'I'm coming, Jojo, it's naptime, isn't it?'

With the babies safe and sound and out of the way, Beckett went into the living room and stared at her men; Castle was there too now. 'Okay, what did you find that is so earth-shattering we have to work from home on it?'

Esposito and Ryan merely exchanged a look and pulled up two file boxes and put them on the table. The sight of them had Beckett's eyes engorging to the size of flying saucers.

'Have you gone completely fucking insane,' she started but cut herself off when Castle put his hand on her shoulder.

'Let the boys talk, Kate.'

'I don't-'

'Kate.' Esposito looked at her with his soulful brown eyes. 'He's right, we need to show you this in its entirety.'

'You told us to look for the boxes dated eight-seven-ninety-seven,' Ryan explained, 'but we couldn't decipher if you meant August seventh or July eighth so we grabbed them both and found this.'

He and Esposito lifted the lids on their boxes and pulled out the files. 'All of these are labeled with the same file number, but there is multiple names on it. Not just Roman Moore but Matthew Montrose, and Timo Ross and Angela Doran, and the three people murdered by Dick Coonan before your mother...'

Ryan looked up at Adam. 'And a file on Jarrad Brennan, too.'


	19. Ra Ra Rasputin by Boney M

_Hello all! Hope you've got your paper bags for breathing into nearby on this one, as you are going to mos-def need them! This song, much like 'Little Green Bag' was chosen as the title as much for its stylistic relationship - it tells the story of a wicked wicked man and that seemed appropriate here. Enjoy!_

* * *

><p>Everyone looked at Adam, who had gone deathly pale. As Castle was nearest to him, he put his hands on the young man's shoulders and looked at him.<p>

'Adam,' he said calmly. 'Adam, it's okay.'

'I...I always knew there was something off when he died, there...there were questions that were just too slick with an answer, and...God...I need to...I could use some water.'

'Why don't you head into the bathroom, right through there.'

Castle pointed him in the right direction, and when he was out of earshot, Beckett let it loose.

'I want to know everything you know, right now,' she demanded.

'Kate, we brought these files straight here,' Esposito replied. 'We need to eat first, too, give ourselves a little breathing room before we go deep again.'

As the others went into the kitchen, he went down the hallway to the main-floor guest bathroom and wasn't surprised when he heard the light sniffling on the other side of the door. He lifted his hand, knocked lightly. 'Adam, it's Rick, I'm coming in.'

When he received no response of protest, he pushed the door open. To his utter lack of surprise, he saw Adam sitting on the floor, the stench of fresh sickness ripe in the trapped atmosphere of the small room. As if the man were his own child, he lowered the toilet lid and flushed it, then sat down to look at him.

'It's a hard thing to learn the truth about the loss of a loved one,' he murmured. 'I won't pretend to know what you're going through because I've never known my father so I have no real background of my own to offer in sympathy.'

'Rick, it's fine, I just needed to get it out in private,' he said in a shaky voice, and for the first time Castle saw what he'd been telling his wife - Adam was still so young, hardly older than she'd been when her own mother had been taken. Now, it was looking like the same people responsible for ordering her death had done the deed themselves to Adam's father.

'Adam, do you know why she pulled you into this case when it ostensibly had nothing to do with your father's death?'

Adam frowned, sat up a little straighter. 'No, I didn't really think about it.'

'It's because, whether she realizes it or not, she wants you to have justice for him as well. She knows what it's like to have someone you love ripped away unfairly by another person's hand and she knows you don't go to sleep at night entirely peaceful because of it.'

'Solving this case won't bring him back to me,' Adam pointed out. 'He'll still be gone.'

'And so will Kate's mother. But you will know that the murdering bastards are locked away rotting, and if they get the death penalty, they're going to know the sorrow and the panic your father and Kate's mother felt.'

'He watched Johanna die,' Adam said, blankly staring at the wall, then looked at Castle whose eyes were bugging out of his head. 'That wasn't in his diary, he told me that once when he told me about her case, after the word got around about Dick Coonan being shot to death in the Twelfth.'

'You have to tell her that, Adam.'

'I know and I will, when the time is right, which is in dare I say about an hour, because we're going to be putting together this case right from the very start.'

'Well, before that, we're going to eat. Yes we are,' Castle insisted when Adam shook his head in protest. 'Come on, up we go.'

He offered his hand to Adam and pulled him to hi feet, then passed him the mouthwash. 'I know we're having Mexican for lunch but you could do with a hit of this.'

* * *

><p>Meredeth's enchiladas were exactly what the doctor ordered; by the time they were ready to sit down in the living room and get to work, they all had cleared nasal passages and clearer heads as they looked at Castle's Smart-board which had been set up to be a murder-board.<p>

'Okay, we need to start with a hard hinging point,' Beckett said. 'We can use my mother's murder as that point.'

'You sure?' Castle looked at her, as he picked up one of the Smart-board markers. 'We can start somewhere else.'

'No point in walking on eggshells around it, Richard. We opened this door, we will walk through it.'

'Okay.'

He opened what looked like a little speech bubble beside a picture of Johanna Beckett, wrote in the bare-bones details of the case - _Johanna Beckett, d. January 9, 1999, alley between 2nd and 3rd Ave on East 62nd St. _'What else do we know about her case?'

'That John Raglan wasn't the first on-scene, it was Jarrad Brennan the beat cop,' Ryan filled in, 'and he took her cellphone from her purse.'

'At her request,' Adam said, and Beckett's head whipped around.

'What?'

'My dad found her just as she was expiring and she said to him 'take the phone in my purse' and then she was gone. He did as she asked, just as another beat cop was coming up to see if he needed help.'

'Roy,' Beckett murmured, and fought the shudder. 'He said he thought he saw your dad put something in his pocket that night.'

'Why wouldn't he have mentioned that in his diary?' Esposito wondered aloud.

'Probably thought it was too dangerous,' Ryan said. 'We know they got to the captain and threatened him, and he shut his mouth about the whole thing. No wonder he wants this solved as much as we do.'

'Let's stay focused, Kate,' Castle told her, knowing this would be another night of her weeping in his arms. But he would rather have a wife crying her eyes out and expressing herself instead of keeping it bottled up and reigned in like the old Beckett could have. 'John Raglan shows up and writes her off as nothing more than gang violence.'

'Her colleagues are killed around the same time. Diane Cavanaugh on her way home from a New Year's Even party, Scott Murphy and Jennifer Stewart were both killed on their way home from work a couple weeks later in different parts of the city, so no one thought to put it together.'

'Five years later, Timo Ross is working in the seven-two and comes across suspicious things about the major takedown of Julio Robinson, big-time drug king. That takedown was a joint effort between the seven-two and the two-three were Mike Doran was a captain.,' Ryan said, looking over his notes as Castle scribbled furiously on the board. 'He goes to Mike and something goes down between them because a week later, he's dead.'

'Then we jump ahead eight years. Mike is retired from the force and his daughter Angela, who was also Timo's fiancee at the time and she comes across Timo's information that got him killed. She does what any smart reporter would do, and the daughter of a cop, and goes to him about the information Timo dug up,' Esposito added, never forgetting the night he saw Angela's broken body in an alleyway. It was etched into his mind because he'd felt Tessi move for the first time inside Meredeth, his firstborn bay, his little princess, and he'd had to rip Mike and Christine's world apart when he told them their only child was murdered.

'Which was what?' Adam asked. 'I've been swamped with paperwork and we haven't really talked about Timo's death all that much, only that he died.'

'Timo found out that several of the cops who were in on the takedown were on Julio Robinson's payroll. Robinson was the baddest of bad cats,' Esposito explained patiently; he'd known Timo the best of them all and felt it a personal responsibility to speak of him now. 'He ran all kinds of pills and powders, some of which were his own street brew. And for the longest time he was untouchable, but Timo had a way of sniffing things out, he was probably the best narc the NYPD will ever see. I mean, they called him the Weed-Whacker for a reason.'

'So he gets dead, and his fiancee Angela, Mike's daughter finds out what got him dead, that a bunch of cops were dirty who took him down.'

'Right, because somehow Julio was still making a shitload of money while he was in prison.'

'And Angela's father was one of them, she confronted him and knowing what we know he turned around and called people to have her whacked.' Adam blew out a breath. 'That's ice cold.'

'But it goes just beyond Mike being a dirty cop. He was taking his marching orders from higher up because if he was at the top of the food chain, this would have been much heavier six years ago when he went to jail,' Beckett said, bringing the current case up to speed. 'So the question now is, who else is involved?'


	20. Ra Ra Rasputin by Boney M Reprise

_Hello all! Oh man you guys are going to start to FREAK out! I chose to use the same song-title for this ch because I originally envisioned this chapter and the previous one being a single chapter, so I'm sure you can guess how this chapter is going to go! Enjoy! Oh and don't forget to review!_

* * *

><p>'We know that Mike was just a foot-soldier, maybe Raglan too,' Esposito said as he studied the spider web of names on the Smart-board.<p>

'No, I think Raglan's higher up,' Beckett countered, scanning the conversation between Raglan and Mike. 'Otherwise why would Raglan ask for a good faith payment? That seems like something a lackey would do.'

'You're right,' Castle agreed, turning to look at her. 'Would Cowlan be in charge?'

'No, he's good but he's not bureaucratic enough.' Ryan shook his head.

'Okay, so not Cowlan. What about the guy in the records room, Elliott?' Esposito suggested. 'That would be an ideal place to have a plant. Otherwise how would you have him not sending up a red flag over Mike and Raglan's frequent trips to records.'

'Maybe planting the records there were the whole point of those trips,' Adam suggested. 'IF he's overseeing the room, no one is going to think twice about him filing something for a fellow cop.'

'Yeah, that's a really good possibility.'

'Okay, so we've established those are definitely some bad guys,' Castle said. 'What about going the other way on this time line, bringing the 'why' of it all into focus with Montrose?'

'That means going through those files.' Ryan pointed to the stack on the table. 'It's a lot to go through.'

They each took a file and while it went faster with the five of them reading simultaneously, it was still an arduous, time-consuming process. An hour and a half later, Esposito called for a time-out and regroup on what they'd all found.

'What's everyone got?' he asked, looked around at the other faces.

'I have Matthew Montrose's service record. By all accounts he was a real up and coming cop, just like Timo Ross,' Castle said. 'He was still an officer but he was assigned a lot of undercover work because he could easily pass in that world.'

'So how would a uniform on the verge of his detective's exam or some other kind of promotion wind up with three bullets in his head in an Alphabet City warehouse?' Ryan pondered.

Castle wrote the question on the board, turned the page in the death file on Montrose. 'According to the arresting officers' reports, and that officers in the plural possessive, Montrose was on his way there after receiving word a major exchange was going to go down. He was with a Detective Christopher Spitzer of the seven-two's narcotics bureau.'

'Spitzer, has he popped anywhere else?' Beckett asked., and got a squawk from Castle. 'Sorry, right, continue.'

'Thank you. Anyways, this particular night Montrose went to look at things first since it was his tip. When he didn't radio Spitzer for backup as promised and he heard three gunshots, Spitzer radioed any available units in the area that an officer might need assistance. He waited until the pandas arrived and went in with Officer John Raglan to find Roman Moore standing over the body with a gun.'

'There was never a reason to question it, unless you looked at Roman Moore a little more closely,' Ryan filled in; he'd taken Roman Moore's file and was looking at his long list of misdeeds. 'The guy's a career felon, no question, total loser. He was arrested like clockwork for drug running and possession.'

'Those often go hand in hand with violence,' Adam said, which had the Irish detective shaking his head.

'This guy's never had so much as a sniff at being linked to anything violent. He just likes to share his part favours with one too many people. He's a criminal, but not a violent one, and any time he's done time, he's never quibbled on his plea. He owned up to his transgressions.'

'So what makes a guy like that suddenly plan and execute the cold-blooded murder of a cop, then deny his involvement?' Beckett wondered aloud. 'He still around?'

'Yeah, surprisingly. And look at this.' Ryan pulled out several pages from his file. 'He went to your mom, and your mom alone for help. He hasn't tried to get himself out of Rikers before or since.'

'We're making a trip to Rikers tomorrow,' Beckett said smoothly, making notes to their current file. 'Okay, so now the million dollar question is what did Matthew Montrose know that was worth killing to keep secret?'

'And my dad,' Adam added softly, sending shivers down all their spines. 'What if...what if one of these dirty cops came to see my dad and coerced him into killing himself? That would explain why the cops who investigated my father's death would see anything different, or why Maggie couldn't be much comfort to me.'

'Maggie?' Beckett felt an itch on the back of her neck. 'As in your friend Cruz?'

'Yeah, she was there. There wasn't really much of an investigation, it was quite obvious he'd hanged himself in the shower and left a note of his own accord. But the cop who came to investigate the suspicious death was someone out of my house, and Maggie was with him. Why?'

'Huh, because her name never appears on any reports of your father's death.'

'She wasn't officially on the case, she said she came after she heard the address. She recognized it as my dad's home and knew I could use a friend.'

Beckett thought of what Adam had told her about Cruz spying on him when he was working the murders with her. But what if...what if... 'Guys, can you give us a minute here? I need to talk to Adam in private.'

'Kate, if you have a question for me, there's no need to send them away. I can handle it.'

'You told me that IA had Maggie looking at you, reporting back to Blake Holmes, right? What if she was sent there to make sure that your dad was dead?'

'I wouldn't put it past Maggie to try and get ahead whatever way possible. When you grow up the way we did, you learn to take what you can get and go with it.'

'Would she go on the take?'

Adam let out a weary sigh, as old feelings and suspicions about one of his oldest friends bubbled freshly to the surface. 'Every fibre of me wants to deny it, but I have to say yes. Yes, she is the exact kind of cop I oculd see going on the take and finding someway to justify it.'

'Which means that there is probably someone involved in this in IA as well. Three guesses as to who I'm thinking,' Beckett added as she looked at the rest of them and she watched Esposito's knuckles curl up.

'Holmes,' he snarled softly. 'That fucking rat bastard.'

'No one likes cops to spy on other cops, that's the natural pecking order,' Ryan added in just as severe a tone, 'but a cop spying on other cops and being on the take for it? They oughta be hung by their balls from the Chrysler Building.'

'Question is there, how do we look at Holmes without letting him know?'

'Easy, we pull in another cop from IA, one who has the power to boss Holmes around,' Beckett said, getting up to move her stuff legs around. 'Montgomery can do that, that's not going to be a problem. We've got out network of dirty cops - Raglan, Cowlan, Spitzer and Elliott, one of whom is dead. We need to look as hard as we can at the remaining three. Okay. Here's what we do. We take the night off.'

'Excuse me?' The Ry-Sposito monster spoke in tandem.

'Go home.' She looked at them all with such heated passion in their eyes. 'We've made some very big leaps today and we are going to need to update Montgomery tomorrow morning, and we're going to need a good night's sleep to do it because things are about to get very messy.'

It was a fact, not an inference; they all knew that so they nodded in agreement and began to tidy up the files. Rather than keeping them in the obviously labeled police issue file boxes, they found some of Castle's manuscript boxes with his unique handwriting on them. They had no room for error, no chance of screwing it up so they didn't consider this paranoia.

The moment she'd kicked her men out the door along with Meredeth and Max to go home, Beckett turned to Castle and gave him a hard kiss.

'I love you Rick.'

'I love you too, Kate.'

'Now where's my other man?'

She headed upstairs to Jojo's nursery, saw her little girl napping like a champion, then went into RJ's room. He too was zonked, but she picked him up out of his bed and carried him into her room where she tugged the duvet over their bodies.

'Mumum?' he asked sleepily. 'Whass mattah?'

'Nothing, I just needed an RJ hug.'

'Oh, okay.' He wrapped his arms around her midsection and made an 'mm' sound as he squeezed. 'There Mumum. Now shh, I snoozing.'


	21. Fresh Feeling by The Eels

Castle stayed in the kitchen after Beckett had gone upstairs to put the kettle on for tea. He knew she needed a little space just to breathe, to cuddle with their son. She had pushed herself and pushed herself hard in such a short space of time, she needed the self-reminder why she was doing it. He knew she knew why she was doing it, but the tangibility of hugging her children and tucking them into bed made her feel successful as a parent which made her in turn an even better cop.

When the water was boiled and he'd put the tea tray together for her Castle added a second espresso cup that was RJ's tea cup. He loved having tea time, mostly because he understood this as an excuse to have cookies, he chuckled as he added the toffee-walnut and oatmeal biscuits he'd been making with his sister the day before. Christ was it only that long ago?

Tray in hands Castle climbed the stairs and just stayed outside the door of the bedroom as he listened to his wife and son talking.

'But you can't be home now, Mumum, you have to catch the bad guys.'

'Remember what we talked about before, RJ, how you need to collect up all the evidence to show the bad guys you have proof they really are the bad guys?'

'Yeah.'

'Well that's what we did today, a tonne of evidence collecting and the bad guys can't know what we're up to, so that's why we worked here today.'

'Oh. In case they were at the per-sink and saw you guys working together?'

'Precinct, RJ-' Castle could hear his wife trying not to laugh '-it's called a precinct.'

'Puh-ree-sink.'

'Close enough.'

'Mumum?'

'Yes RJ.'

'Even if you don't get the bad guys, I am still very proud of you.'

Castle shoved open the door then, lest Beckett start to get a bit teary from lack of sleep and being touched by their son's huge heart. 'Here we are, it's tea time.'

'Yummy! Is it the Puerto-Rican tea, Daddy?' RJ asked, bouncing to the end of the bed to inspect the contents of the tray.

'No, but it's still yummy. This is the kind of tea Meredeth makes her iced tea from, it's called rooibos.'

'Oooh, sounds dee-lish.'

Knowing the drill, RJ sat on the bed with his legs crossed and politely held up both of his hands, took the small cup of tea with milk. He dutifully blew across the surface of the hot beverage and sipped carefully. 'That is very yummy. May I have a cookie, please?'

'Of course. Alexis said you guys had a great time baking yesterday,' Castle smiled as he passed over Beckett's tea to her and put the plate of cookies on the bed where they wouldn't be toppled.

'Oh it was so much fun Daddy. I wish Trini's birthday was sooner, then I could make her some cookies out of my new cookie book,' RJ sighed wistfully.

'Maybe she might like them for Valentine's Day.'

'No, Daddy.' RJ shook his head. 'That is too close to Max's first ever birthday. And he is a very special baby, be-cause Meredeth was sick when he was so little in her belly.'

'Maybe you can make cookies for Max,' Beckett suggested, loving this normalcy of chatting with her son after naptime was done. 'Meredeth says he's like his biggest sister and his daddy, he loves chocolate things.'

'I thought under-ones weren't supposed to have dairy?' Castle asked.

'Normally true, but because of the issues Meredeth had while pregnant, the pediatrician gave them clearance to get Max's calcium up and he loves chocolate milk apparently.'

'Maybe he likes super cho-o-late cookies?' RJ inquired, then went very still.

'RJ, what's wrong?'

'I think Jojo is awake and she wants to visit.'

'I'll get her,' Beckett said, and RJ went to follow her, but Castle stopped him by putting a hand on his son's little shoulder.

'Daddy, I have to see my Jojo, she needs her RJ after nap-time.'

'RJ, I know you love your sister, but your mumum is very worried about this case she is working on, and she wants to spend some alone-time with Jojo just like you guys had your alone time.'

'Oh, okay Daddy. This a time when I have to be a big bro and take a step back, right? That's what Shane says to me from time to time.'

'Shane is very right.'

RJ sipped his tea, nibbled a kid-size cookie. 'We should make a nice dinner for Mumum tonight. She needs to have a good healthy meal to be strong for catching bad guys.'

'I agree wholeheartedly. What do you think she would like?'

'Ummm, I don't know.'

'What if we did ravioli with that creamy tomato sauce?'

'Yummy!' RJ nodded excitedly. 'To the kitchen, Chef Daddy!'

* * *

><p>'Mumum, why sad?'<p>

'I'm not sad, bumblebee, I'm just very tired. It's been a busy day.'

Jojo pursed up her little one-year-old mouth in thought and looked around. 'Where Bib?'

With her daughter's wet diaper in one hand, Beckett looked around and saw the stuffed caterpillar in the crib. She deposited the used nappie in the diaper genie then brought over the toy. 'Here you are, sweetie.'

'Moosh Mumum.' Jojo gripped Bib with one hand and bopped him against Beckett's cheek. 'Moosh niss.'

'Mooshes are nice,' Beckett agreed and when she tickled Jojo's feet, heard her little girl laugh, the smile came naturally. 'Can I get one more?'

Jojo held Bib close to her face and nodded. 'Bib moosh!'

Knowing her job Beckett gave her daughter's toy a loud noisy kiss. 'There, how's that?'

'Yea moosh! Up?'

'Yeah, we're all dry here.' She picked up Jojo, and felt her wiggle in her arms. 'Are you a caterpillar too?'

'Wan' walk.'

'Okay.'

Jojo clapped when she was put on her feet, then dutifully handed over Bib to her mumum and took her hand. 'Ah-Shay?'

'We'll go find RJ.'

Beckett giggled in delight as Jojo dragged her towards RJ's room and stuck her head in the doorway. 'Ah-Shay?'

'He's not in here.'

'Do-tahs?'

'I think he might be downstairs.'

'Okay!'

Jojo hauled her mother towards the stairs and squatted down so her bottom was hitting each step as she went downstairs. 'Dodo safe!' she declared when she got to the bottom, then dropped Beckett's fingers when she saw her brother in the kitchen. 'Ah-Shay!'

'Hi-hi, Jojo. We are making supper for our dete'tive mumum!' he told her brightly.

'Me too!'

'I think we can manage that.' Castle came over and scooped up his baby girl, planted a raspberry on her cheek. 'You are going to be the queen of the kitchen and supervise the humble peasant chefs.'

'Mumum, you go over there.' RJ came over and actually put his hands on his mother's butt and pushed her towards the living room. 'You are working hard and you nee' your chefs to take care of you.'

'You're very sweet, RJ, but I can help.'

'Maybe...maybe you should have a bubble-bath before dinner,' he suggested with a sage nod. 'That might make you feel better too.'

'Bubbas?' Jojo looked over from her highchair. 'Go pash-pash?'

'Actually, I think that would be a good idea for Mumum to do later,' Castle said, giving his wife a sizzling look over the tops of their children's heads. 'With a nice little glass of wine to go with it.'

'I think that sounds even better,' Beckett agreed.

* * *

><p>Later when the babies were in bed, Beckett did indulge in her bubble bath and glass of wine, but she wasn't alone in the tub. She sighed as she leaned back against her husband's sturdy chest. 'Am I wrong, Rick?'<p>

'Are you wrong?'

'Am I wrong, taking the night off from the case, indulging myself like this?'

'No, you're not,' he told her. 'You have gotten maybe twelve hours of sleep in the last three days and you need to take a pause for yourself, and your men, or you will burn out and that's when you're most vulnerable. And clearly I'm not doing my job as your husband if you are in the bathtub, hot and wet with me, and you are still thinking so hard.'

Castle moved the wet strings of her hair off the nape of her neck and kissed where it sloped into her shoulders. In his opinion, a woman's shoulder were one of the most unappreciated curves of a woman's body, and he loved to let his lips linger there.

'Let's fix that, shall we?'


	22. Every Breath You Take by The Police

**JANUARY 7TH**

The next morning, Beckett was up and out of bed and ready for work by five-thirty in the morning. Her mind was restless, facts and questions and suppositions and extrapolations all fighting for space in her brain. She kissed her husband goodbye, checked on her children and told them how much she loved them.

She called Montgomery on her way to the precinct and felt a little embarrassed when she heard the lazy satisfaction of his voice. _Three minutes sooner and I'd be competing with Ryan for the master of bad timing title_, she thought as the captain answered his phone, 'This is Montgomery.'

'Sir, it's Beckett. I'm on my way to the precinct, how soon can you be there? I have some major updates for you.'

'Hang on.'

She heard the rustling of sheets and prayed to God he was only sitting up in bed; the vision of her captain getting dressed after wake-up sex with his lovely wife Liz was more than her brain could handle that morning. 'Okay, what's this about major updates?'

'I'd rather tell you in person, sir, but suffice to say that we found a shit-bomb of epic proportions yesterday.'

'I'll meet you there, where is the rest of your team?'

'I've contacted them and they are on their way to meet me.'

'Are they aware of these updates?' Montgomery asked.

'Sir, this was a group effort, we found it all together. Castle helped a little as well.'

'I'll see you in thirty, Detective.'

Beckett hung up, pulled into the parking lot. She sat a moment in her car, took a steadying breath, then laid her head on the steering wheel. 'Mom, please don't me be wrong,' she murmured, then got out with her file bag and headed for the elevator.

'Hold the door!' she heard a voice call and felt her stomach curl up when she recognized it as Blake Holmes, but she gave in out of fear of bad karma.

'Good morning Detective,' he said to her. 'How is your case on Raglan coming?'

'We've got several avenues we're looking at.'

'Please, that's the bullshit line you give the media when you have nothing.'

'No, I really mean we've got several lines of investigation going.'

'Care to share anything of what you've found?'

Beckett's head whipped around to look at the IA captain so hard she got a crick in the neck. 'Are you asking me to share information on an open investigation with the Rat Squad?'

'We're cops the same as you.'

'Why are you so interested in John Raglan's death?' Beckett demanded. 'He was retired for at least a decade before he was murdered, yet you're acting like he went down in the line of duty. Why is that?'

'Like I said, we're cops the same as you and when a cop gets picked off like that

'Weren't you also one of the ones to make sure that Adam Brennan got booted from the force?'

'Cops who murder their married lover's spouses in a jealous rage have no right to a badge.' Blake gave her a cold look. 'You want to use him as your little civilian pet, that's your business. But I'll warn you know, things could get messy if you continue to refuse co-operating with IA on Raglan's death.'

'Are you threatening me, Holmes?'

'I'm telling you to do your job properly or things will not go the way you want them to, which is to wrap a nice high profile case and get plenty of positive attention.'

'What I want is to do my job without veiled threats from someone who has no right how to tell me to solve my case.'

The elevator doors dinged open on Homicide and Beckett sneered when Blake followed her off; she didn't miss that Adam was sitting with Esposito and Ryan at their desks. 'What, are you going to sit at my desk and make notes?'

'I have a meeting with Montgomery this morning to discuss the Raglan case.'

Beckett drew in a breath through her nose, then thought of something she'd told to Adam the day before, how those who were innocent were more likely to get outraged and pissed off and those with something to hide would tense up and throw up the walls. 'Then my men should sit in on it, if you and your head rat are going to slap our bad little Homicide bottoms. Shouldn't we?'

'Joke all you like, this is serious.'

'Do I look like I am joking?' Beckett stepped forward so the toes of her boots bumped Blake's wingtip dress shoes. 'I have never been more serious about solving a case in my entire career.'

'Good. Then our little visit this morning shouldn't slow you down.'

'Captain Holmes.' Montgomery stepped to the door of his office.

Blake fussed at the knot of his tie, went into Montgomery's office; the Homicide captain stayed in the door way and looked at his people before walking over to them.

'I got a call from them just after you called me, Kate,' he whispered to them. 'You all are going to want to be present. He doesn't think I know, but his commander is coming down as well. If it goes where I think it will, you will have a field with what we get from them. I'll text you when I want you to come in. For now, make it look like you're spinning your wheels so you won't be able to give '

'Yes sir. I should add Blake made some comments that would interest you but we can save them until after the meeting.'

Montgomery gave them a brisk nod before returning to his office, and the moment the door closed, Beckett went into the breakroom with her three musketeers hot on her heels. She saw a single uniform who barely looked old enough to drink at he cappuccino maker.

'Get out,' she snapped at him, and he looked at her with mild disinterest.

'When I get my coffee.'

'Yo, the detective said get out,' Esposito said, cracking his knuckles. 'That wasn't a suggestion. Beat it.'

The uniform grumbled but obeyed and they shut the doors. Alone, they grouped around one of the tables. 'What the hell is going on, Kate?' Adam asked. 'Why is IA here sniffing around again?'

'That's what we're going to learn, but we are going to let Montgomery know that Blake told me things might get messy if we keep looking into Raglan the way we are right now.'

'He did what?' Ryan said, feeling his nerves sizzle a little.

Beckett explained the exchange in the elevator and saw all of her men's eyes go cool and flat. It may have been twisted but she knew in their minds, they were all beating Blake Holmes to a bloody pulp and that gave her a very dark thrill of pride. 'So now, we're going to watch him and his commander squirm and dance.'

'What if Blake is another one of the guys in on the sting with Cowlan and Raglan?' Esposito suggested. 'That would make a lot of sense why he's being so goddamn nosy.'

'It would also make sense why Maggie would be on their ticket, why they wanted an eye kept on me via a friend,' Adam added.

'Before we get ahead of ourselves, why don't we make it through the meeting with our captain and the commander of IA,' Beckett suggested; she knew her man had rubbed off on her men and they could spin theory worthy of a best-selling crime novel now. 'And we leave here at different times.'

'Right.'

Adam went first, taking a bottle of water from the fridge while Ryan took a regular mug of coffee to his desk thirty-seconds after Adam had sat down beside his desk. Because they had hung back, Esposito turned to Beckett and gave her a narrow stare.

'He get in your space, Kate?' he asked quietly as he made espresso for lattes.

'What?'

'He get in your space, you feel like he was too close?'

'Oh, Javi, no. No, not at all,' Beckett replied emphatically.

'Good. Better for him.'

He finished up with the coffees, and let Beckett go first; as she walked out of the break room, the elevator doors opened and Commander Aaron Attwood stepped off the lift with a grim but neutral as he walked towards her.

'Detective, good morning,' he said. 'I understand we are having a little trouble remaining focused on our investigation.'

'_My _investigation is progressing slowly but we are making headway,' she replied, sipping her coffee.

'Just as well that IA should be kept apprised of your progress, though, to ensure you're not looking up the wrong trees, looking to drag a dead man's name through the mud.'

_Son of a bitch_, Beckett thought numbly as he walked to Montgomery's office door and knocked, _it's you_.

**H**


	23. Sabotage by Beastie Boys

Adam looked at the group of cops and wondered if they all knew what a formidable picture they painted - the warrior-queen flanked by her two sentries, all standing with their fearless leader. They wore the same expression of grim impatience as the two officers from IA - if they could even be called that - primly made their case.

'It's come to my attention through Captain Holmes the investigators on the John Raglan matter are more concerned with investigating the former detective than finding his killer.'

Commander Aaron Attwood was in his late fifties and had a severely square face that matched his severely square haircut. 'Several requests for his phone transcripts have been made and one has to wonder why you are antagonizing the man's memory instead of trying to find this lunatic who obviously had a vendetta against him.'

Beckett fought not to bare her teeth in a vicious snarl. 'Surely, Commander, you understand in order to know the killer, you have to look at the victim to find out why someone would want to kill him with an army-issue sniper rifle on a Tuesday morning.'

'I understand you've also made the asinine leap that his death is connected to a disgraced former officer's death,' Attwood continued, undeterred, as though he hadn't heard Beckett speak at all.

'Mike Doran was shanked in prison. Raglan was his long-time friend.' Esposito ticked off the points on his fingers. 'The morning Mike gets capped, Christine Doran and Raglan are in a car accident while on their way to the prison. Once Christine's cleared from the wreck, a sniper opens fire on Raglan and kills him with a single shot. It doesn't take a genius to make the connection.'

'It seems like you're more interested in spinning grand conspiracy theories than doing your job.'

'And if you'd been doing your job, neither Mike Doran or John Raglan would have had their badges as long as they did,' Ryan fired back. 'The phone transcripts we looked at, well within the scope of our investigation, revealed they were up to their eyeballs in corruption. Tell me, Commander, how the hell does an imprisoned police captain end up with three foreign accounts where he can move twenty-nine thousand dollars around like it was petty cash?'

'Mike Doran's finances aren't your worry. Finding out who killed Raglan is.'

'Don't presume to come down here and tell my people their jobs,' Montgomery warned Attwood.

'Remember, _Captain_, that it is well within my purview to decide if you and your investigators both are doing your jobs.'

'You understand I can call the Deputy Chief of Detectives for South Manhattan and let him know you're threatening my people.' Montgomery was on his feet, hands braced on his desk. 'And it still hasn't answered our question. Why are you so interested in the death of a retired detective, and trying to break the obvious link between him and Mike Doran when it's clear the motive for both their killings probably lies in their time on the force together.'

Attwood looked at them all and Beckett nearly cheered when she saw undiluted panic in the commander's eyes. 'You are way off base on your investigation into Raglan. Find the killer or I will see to it this case is shut down and never sees the light of day again, and furthermore, I'll see to it you are all reprimanded for gross dereliction of duty.'

Attwood rose stiffly and left, Blake following him like a puppy out the door. As he was closest to the door, Adam closed it behind them and looked around at the others, who let out their collective breath and began to grin.

'Is it just me or should we be adding Blake and the commander to our list?'

'Tell me everything you found out yesterday,' Montgomery demanded. 'Right now.'

'There is a group of cops out of the seven-two who are neck-deep in illegal activity, most likely a drug-running business run by Julio Robinson since the majority of them are all dope cops and they're making a fortune off of it. We'll know once we have the surviving conspirators in interview how they got started,' Beckett informed him. 'We need their personnel files , and probably more phone records, to find what we need.'

'How does Johanna's murder fit in?' Montgomery asked, tossing them a grapefruit of a question.

'Sir, we have circumstantial evidence to be corroborated by one Roman Moore, whose case my mother and her colleagues were looking into. I believe- we all believe,' she amended, looking at her team, 'that when she started sniffing around Moore's case she was silenced because she figured out Moore was framed for murdering a cop.'

'And after that little meeting this morning, we can guess that Attwood and Holmes are tied to it as well, it's the only reason they would stonewall us,' Ryan added. 'If we have IA up our asses, and they're dirty, they could make accessing those records very very hard for us.'

'We've also got Fuqua on our side and we'll get the Deputy Chief there too.' Montgomery hit speaker-phone; he dialed the number for One Police Plaza and requested to be connected to Sean Delancy's office. There was the click-click of the transferred phone line and a few minutes later the man himself was on the line.

'This is Deputy Chief Delancy.'

'Sean, it's Roy Montgomery from the Twelfth.'

'Roy, how's the Raglan case coming? Have you dug anything else out on more potential cops gone wrong?'

'Sir, I think we have a problem with two IA officers, Blake Holmes and Aaron Attwood. They just stopped by to tell us that if we don't refocus our investigation away from the link between Raglan and Doran and Cowlan, and in all likelihood Christopher Spitzer as well, they would ensure that my officers face consequences for gross dereliction of duty.'

'Attwo- what the hell is he doing down your throats on this case?' Delancy barked. 'Why the hell would he care about two dead retired cops, unless...oh damn. Damn, damn, goddammit! You wouldn't come to me if you didn't have a judge already helping you, so what do you need from me?'

'Service records for several cops, without IA knowing about it.'

Delancy's sigh was weighty. 'Let's have them.'

'Mike Doran, Frank Cowlan, George Elliott and John Raglan of the seven-two, Blake Holmes and Aaron Attwood of Internal Affairs.'

'Christopher Spitzer from the seven-two as well,' Esposito said, remembering the name from the report on Montrose's death.

'And Magdelana Cruz of the two-eight,' Adam added.

'Jesus Christ, you found a hornet's nest didn't you?' Delancy mumbled; they could all hear the scratch of pen on paper as he took down the names. 'Any others you think you're going to need?'

'Yeah, Matthew Montrose and Jarrad Brennan,' Beckett added for good measure.

'I'll do what I can. Meanwhile, lay it out for your judge and get whatever warrants you need. Give my name if necessary to speed things up. I'll have these to you by ten this morning.'

Montgomery glanced at his watch. 'I owe you one Sean.'.

'If this leads to the arrest of dirty cops, you don't owe me shit. I'll be in touch.'

Montgomery hung up, then looked at his troops, his dark eyes burning like glowering coals in a fire-pit. 'Adam, Esposito, get over to Fuqua's chambers, tell her exactly what we told Delancy; we need all the firepower she can give us. Ryan, get everything you can from ballistics on Raglan's shooting. Beckett you're going to Rikers. I'll spin some plates from here and we'll debrief at eleven thirty this morning, not a nanosecond later. Beckett and Adam, a moment of your time, please.'

The Ry-Sposito monster filed out and when they were alone, Montgomery looked at them. 'You know I had a small part in this, that I was helping Jarrad in his earlier investigation, but I swear to you on my wife's soul, on the blood of my child, I am not a part of their network.'

'Sir, I would never even think you were,' Beckett said, her centre going cold.

'Good, because you know there is a chance those pricks in IA will try to twist it, saying that I was part of the conspiracy all along because of the photos I was sent, the threats against my family.' Montgomery drilled his fingertip into the top of his desk. 'I have never taken a bribe or corrupted my badge in any way. I corrupted my conscience by not doing the right thing when I had the chance.'

'Sir, you're making it right now,' Adam said calmly.

'I'm glad you're young and idealistic enough to see it that way Adam.'

'You see Adam,' Beckett explained gently to him. 'Had Cowlan not been involved in that corruption you talked about to him, this is how he would react. That is the passion of an honest man in a bad situation.'

She opened the door, then looked back. 'Captain, everyone has been telling me that I'm not alone on this case anymore, but I want you to know, you aren't either.'


	24. I Shot the Sheriff by Bob Marley

The trip to Rikers was short, but Beckett was thankful she had noone in her car as she called home. She needed the breather after the intense showdown in her captain's office.

'Castle house, this is RJ speaking.'

'Are you sure, you sound too grown up,' she teased her baby.

'Mumum! You want to talk to Daddy?'

Beckett let herself laugh a little. 'Yes, my little prince, I want to talk to Daddy.'

'Okay. Daddy! It's Mumum!'

As usual there was the scuffling sound of the phone being handed over and Castle's velvety voice came on the line. 'What are you up to that RJ is declaring awesome?'

'Going to Rikers to interview Roman Moore. Should be interesting to see how that goes, considering two twerps from IA came down to tell us all to back the hell off of our investigation, or that it might get messy.'

'Kate, be careful.' All good humour vanished from Castle's voice. 'You have too much at stake to go picking fights with people like that.'

'I know. I love you.'

'I love you too.'

Once parked Beckett went in and signed the visitor log's; she made a mental note to ask for a photocopy of her visit there when she was done, and was escorted to the public visiting area where non-violent tendancies were permitted their guests. She had a thirty-minute window and she was going to make the most of it.

While Beckett waited for Roman Moore she reread his file - long-time loser, forever being arrested for petty crimes until he got into the drugs and then he was arrested for moving product for Julio Robinson. Nothing major, the kind that usually went to the uptown suppliers and party fiends. And most tellingly, there was no history of violence, no records of him in altercations when he'd done two years in juvie and three as an adult; he didn't even own a weapon.

So how the hell could a man like that coolly pump three rounds with a nine-millimetre in rapid succession into a officer like Matthew Montrose?

The sound of leg-irons clinking had Beckett looking up and closing the folder. The man was pale as a ghost, she noted, and had the deep sunken eyes of a long-time addict gone clean too late. His eyes were jumpy and nervous but settled when he saw her, the light of recognition in them as he took a seat across from her at the hexagon-shaped table. Discreetly Beckett turned on the recorder.

'I know you,' he said. 'You're Johanna's daughter. Katie-Lou.'

'It's Detective Beckett now.'

'She thought you'd be a lawyer,' Roman commented, scratching his cheek. 'Slay the dragons, tilt the windmills. Save the world. But I don't figure you're here to check up on me, so let's make this quick.'

'I am going to record this conversation, Roman,' Beckett said to him. 'Do you object?'

'No, that's cool. Cops always want things on the record.'

'Did you see who really murdered Matthew Montrose?'

The bluntness of her question visibly rocked Roman. He blinked like an owl, then leaned forward. 'Who's paying you?'

'What?'

'Who got to you? Raglan? Spitzer? Or was it big dog Cowlan himself?'

'I'm investigating the death of John Raglan, and my investigation has led me to discovering there are dirty cops in the seven-two's narcotics bureau. My research led me back to my mother's case, which led me to you. I read your file, says you knew Montrose, knew he was a cop.'

'Yeah, I did, but I figured we all have our jobs to do in the world, and since I was the only one who figured he was a cop I played along.'

'That was the motive the ADA and the judge used at your trial.'

Roman nodded, his mouth pursed up like he'd been sucking on a lemon. 'It was total bullshit. I was a fall-guy, they needed Montrose out of the way.'

'Why?' Beckett leaned forward in anticipation of the answer. 'Why did they need Montrose out of the way?'

'Can I give you a little history first?' At the cop's nod, Roman sighed like a man going to confession in a church. 'Montrose always had this little book, I figured being in the underworld he was keeping tabs on us, but he wasn't. He was keeping tabs on the busts he saw, the deals he heard of going down, and he kept note of cars in the area. He came to me one day, said he noticed the same panda trolling in the area, and asked me if I could make a note of it, any time I saw it around.'

'Which you did?'

'Yeah. I knew Montrose - he was calling himself Drago, he looked like that guy from the Rocky movie - probably had a file on me so I figured if I did him a solid when the time came for him to can me, he'd make a case for me saying I was just a lowlife loser doing a lowlife loser's job.' Roman looked around, licked his lips. 'Can we get a drink? I mean, like, is there and water or soft drinks or something?'

'No, sorry, no change.' Beckett reached in her coat pocket and came up with, ironically enough, two Chupa-Chups lollipops. 'Want a lollipop?'

'Sure,' Roman laughed and for a moment the cop saw a sad little boy happy just to talk to someone who would actually listen to his own story, not the one they wanted to hear. He set the wrapper on the table, grinned around the hard candy. 'Taste like a Coke.'

'I got fruit-punch. Keep going about Montrose and the cars.'

'I asked him how long he wanted me to keep tabs on this, and he said two weeks should be good. So I did, presented him my findings just like I was his rookie or something. He thanked me, then disappeared for a few days. Don't know where, but I guessed he was doing his cop thing because the next time I saw him, he told me he was going to disappear for awhile, go off grid because he found something he didn't like the smell of and he wanted to clean house.'

'What did he find?'

'I don't know, but then about a week later, around nine at night or so, I got a call from him saying that he wanted to meet me, said he needed my help with something. I went to the address he gave, a warehouse on Avenue D near East Fourteenth Street. It was an old paper-mill so the place always smelled like wet wood. I went in, called out for Montrose; I said 'Drago, yo Drago, you here? It's your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.'

Roman took a steadying breath and Beckett saw something else now - a man who'd befriended an undercover and was reliving the hell of finding that pseudo-friend dead. 'Think, Roman. What did you see, what did you hear?'

'Footsteps, but not Montrose's, these were heavier, like a big guy. I heard other footsteps come up behind me and the next thing I know I'm being koshed on the head.' Roman tapped the crown of his skull. 'When I come to, I see Montrose lying on the ground beside me, and there's two guys. One's a big beefy black guy, the other is in a uniform and wearing a ski mask, and he's got a gun in his gloved hands.'

'Was Montrose dead then?'

'No, only down. Trust me, I gag on blood, and there was no blood yet. The ski mask asks the black guy, is this the right one, and the black guy says yeah, he'll do. The mask says, take off Cowlan, then waits until the other guy leave and looks at me with these eyes. They were cold and dead and every time I go to bed, I see them.'

Beckett tried not to let her breath come in shaky streams. Every nerve under her skin was wound tight. 'What happened next?'

'He said that the man I knew as Drago was a disloyal little bastard and he needed to be dealt with. I heard Montrose mumble a little. The mask walked over, looked at him in the face and said 'this is what happens when bad puppies bark up the wrong tree' and he pulled the trigger three times. I passed out because I saw the blood and then...then the next thing I know, I'm coming to again, and there's the gun in my hand and I'm kneeling over his body, and then the place is full of cops, and I...I recognized the black guy, he was with the older white guy, and the younger white guy, though not by much, he's the one who arrested me.'

'I need names Roman. Even one.'

'Detective,' Roman snorted, 'those names I know like my own. The black guy said to the older white guy, what do you think, Spitzer, you want this tag, and he said it has to be Raglan, Detective Cowlan. He's our guy in Homicide and that's how it needs to go if we want things to smooth over.'


	25. Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks

'Here you go, one visitor's log photocopy.'

The desk sergeant gave Beckett the printout, not bothering to hide her weirded out expression, which Beckett took in stride with a shrug.

'My captain's been a little paranoid lately, wants to make sure we all have our ducks in a row.'

'Hey, no skin off mine. Take care of yourself.'

'You too.'

Beckett went out through the visitor's sign-in lounge, not missing that the beefy man who'd been there reading the paper when she'd gone in was reading the same section as she walked out. Turning her body as she shoved open the door, she popped the safety on her gun holster as she reached for her keys. She was steps away from the entrance when she heard the door open and shut behind her; Beckett didn't have to look back to know she was being hunted.

She nearly made it to her car, and for a microsecond there was the glimmer of hope she'd been wrong. It vanished the moment she felt hard hands connect against her back and she took the hard shove from behind, braced herself against the back end of her Crown Victoria. Spinning, she drew out her weapon in a smooth fluid motion and trained it on the man. He was massive, at least six-six and a solid two-sixty of mixed fat and muscle, but he was barely breathing hard. This was not just muscle for hire, this was Dick Coonan all over again - military trained and too damn smart to bluff.

Still she was no cupcake either and she held herself in an isosceles stance with her police issue marked at the spot above his left eye.

'Touch me again, I dare you.'

'Only came here with a message for you, little lady.' His beady eyes were nearly black with intensity. 'Get your nosy ass back in line and wrap up Raglan's death or maybe next time it won't be some tired old geezer of a cop, maybe it'll be those cute little children of yours. Or that red-headed slut who just got married you're so fond of.'

Beckett's blood went to ice but she simply steadied her weapon. 'I promise you, if you threaten my family, you'll wish you'd never been born. You will beg for death.'

'That a threat from one of New York's finest?'

'That's a promise. You will not touch me more mine.'

The beefy man clucked his tongue, and popped in a stick of Doublemint. 'Says you. My rifle might have a different idea. You best be on your way now.'

Beckett kept her weapon on him until she watched him walk towards a waiting taxi and drive off, then got into her car. She didn't holster her weapon but put it on the seat; the moment her engine was turned over and she was peeling out of the parking lot, she dialed home.

'Rick,' she said, running over his words when she heard him answer; for the first time she thanked God her son hadn't picked up. 'Is there any chance of you sending the kids away?'

'I had a feeling you'd say that, so I talked to Alexis, RJ and Jojo are going with their sister to Miami and staying with Terrance for the next three days.

'Good. I know you can't really say anything so just listen.' Beckett negotiated the turn onto the bridge, used her gumball to clear the cars from her path. 'I just left Rikers and some hired muscle took a swing at me in the parking lot, the same hired muscle that took out Raglan. I'm on my way to the precinct and I'm going to tell you right now you cannot talk to any of the families until I get there, you hear me? I don't want to be responsible for them panicking.'

'Of course,' he said so smoothly that Beckett heart gave a squelch.

'I love you.'

'I love you too. Call when you have news.'

She hung up and with her lights and sirens still going, she drove into the underground lot at the Twelfth, then took the stairs two at a time until she reached the Homicide floor. Relief was great when she saw Adam and Esposito going over the records they'd gotten via Fuqua's warrants, and Ryan was coming out of the break room with three cups of coffee in his hands. She flew past them, barking, 'Follow me' and they were up in a flash as they went into Montgomery's office without waiting for invitation.

'Beckett, you...Christ, what happened,' Montgomery said, looking up from the files splayed on his desk and yanking off his reading glasses. 'Close the door, sit down.'

'No, sir,' she replied with a shake of her head. 'I talked to Moore, got everything on the night Montrose died.'

'Good, because I am-'

'Sir, with all due respect, shut up and let me finish.'

The Ry-Sposito monster and Adam lifted their collective eyebrows so high they nearly plowed through the ceiling while Montgomery simply moved around his desk to sit on the edge of it, so he was part of the group and not separated from his people.

'What is it, Kate?'

'The shooter from the Raglan homicide accosted me in the parking lot on my way out. Here, have a listen.'

Ever the smart Detective, she pulled out the recorder she hadn't shut off from talking to Roman Moore - a smart precaution on her part - and pushed play. In a few minutes they all heard it, the quite obvious threat against Beckett and her family.

'I called my husband, and he's arranged for RJ and Jojo to go with Alexis to a medical conference in Miami she was already leaving for this afternoon anyways. She's staying with Terrance and he's been informed he'll have a few extra house-guests.'

'Mere was at the crime scene,' Esposito breathed, then fumbled for his phone. 'They're not getting my babies.'

'Or mine.'

While the men made their phone calls, Adam stepped over and looked at Beckett. 'Nothing will happen to them, I promise.'

'I don't care who it is or what happens, they come after Alexis or RJ or Jojo, they are dead,' she said in an icy voice.

Meredeth says she wants to send the twins and my father to Miami as well, give Terrance a hand with your little ones,' Esposito informed her while still on the phone, 'and my mami's agreed to take Tessi and Max to Puerto Rico with her.'

'Tell them to stagger the flights and don't fly from the same airport,' Montgomery replied. 'The last thing we need to do is to tip them off.'

'My kids are going to California with Lanie and Dave and their family, they were already set to go anyways, should I put Honey-Milk on a flight as well?' Ryan asked, not surprised when his friend nodded.

'I'll pick up the tab for the flights,' Beckett replied without hesitation. 'Castle will not care about the money. In fact.'

She called his cellphone this time, not home and wasn't surprised when he answered. 'Rick I need you to arrange some flight details for me.'

'What do you need Kate?'

The information was exchanged and when they were all certain their babies and loved ones would be far far away from this nightmare, Beckett looked at them. 'They're starting to panic and get the troops in line.'

'We need to do the same thing, but I am fairly certain that you already have a plan,' Esposito said as he studied Beckett's face.

'We go after the weakest link, bring him in for questioning so the others know we're onto them, send the warning shot legitimately. Question is, who do we go after? Do we want big-dog Cowlan or someone who will give us Cowlan?'

'We could work our way through the food chain,' Ryan suggested. 'Mike was clearly low on the rung and he couldn't handle the pressure of it, which was why they put the squeeze on Christine, to make sure whatever Mike had told her stayed a secret. So who would be next in line?'

Beckett closed her eyes, called up the murder board they'd constructed at home. 'Elliott,' she decided. 'He was their clean-up man in Records, so he would know where every body is buried.'

'How do we do that?'

'Detective Esposito and I got that covered,' Adam said, stepping forward. 'We went to Fuqua and she gave us whatever we needed, which wasn't too hard since when we arrived at her chambers she was on the phone with Delancy anyways.'

'Good to know the brass is on our side,' Beckett said, and Montgomery shook his head.

'Delancy came from the streets, not the politician's office, he knows when to smell a rat. Adam, Detective Esposito, what have you found?'

'We've just finished going over the rest of Raglan's phone transcripts, we'll need some help to get the rest for Spitzer, Cowlan, Elliott and Attwood done,' Adam continued. 'We'll find our weak link in one of them.'


	26. Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes

'We've just finished going over the rest of Raglan's phone transcripts, we'll need some help to get the rest for Spitzer, Cowlan, Elliott and Attwood done,' Adam continued as they assembled in the conference room, and Beckett and Ryan could only stare as he took his seat. 'What?'

'Delancy must want these guys as badly as we do, if we have those transcripts that quickly,' Ryan said with no little amount of surprise.

'Like I said,' Montgomery told them, 'Delancy is a street cop at the core, not a politician. If he were, he'd have made Chief of Police long ago.'

'Uh, sir?' Esposito looked at Montgomery as he sat down and rolled up his sleeves beside Adam. 'Again not to be rude, but don't you have work to do?'

'I report to the very man who is on our side, Detective Esposito. This is where I need to be until this case is resolved.'

They combed through the paper work, reading through page after page and making highlighted notes, setting aside the calls that were priority. Finally, when they heard the little timer go that Beckett had set on her watch to take a breath, they all sat up straighter, stretched and looked around the room.

'Anything yet?' she asked, looking at Esposito who had taken Elliott's calls.

'A little thing.' He handed around a page with a short highlighted phone-call. 'It's from Spitzer, asking him if he had a nice holiday, had some good desserts and Elliott replied he did, Camilla is such a good baker especially with Swiss chocolate.'

'That's code if I ever heard it,' Beckett scoffed. 'Another word for baker is chef and a chef is a cook, one of the most common words in narco jargon. And Swiss chocolate? More than like that means his foreign bank account.'

'Agreed. Who's Camilla?'

'Yet another question in this shit-mess,' Ryan groused.

'Ryan, you didn't find anything?'

'Not yet. What about you, Beckett?'

'Cowlan was a very bad boy,' she commented. 'He called a Nicolas Goddard, said he needed a deer-hunter for the urban jungle. He'd make sure the deer was penned in and he would know the moment when to hunt.'

Adam wheeled over to the computer, searched the name and pumped his fist. 'Yahtzee! Nicholas Goddard, ex-Marine, received one combat medal and three commendations for his sniper skills.'

'Let's see the picture?' When Adam turned the screen to face her, Beckett felt a little chill as she replayed the scene from the parking lot at Rikers. 'That's the guy I saw this afternoon at the prison. We need an APB out on him, stat. Wanted for threatening a police officer and possible racketeering.'

'On it.' Montgomery left to do just that, while the others looked around as they tried to sort out their brains from yet another avalanche of information.

'I think you're right, Ryan,' Beckett commented. 'We have to go through the chain of command, which means we look for the people on Montrose's murder.'

'Why Montrose?' Adam asked. 'Why not Timo Ross and Mike's involvement there?'

'That's the second branch of this, the original was my mother investigating Moore's arrest for a murder he did not commit. So we work back another layer from that, who did kill Montrose and why.'

'We know the who, it was the trio of Cowlan, Spitzer and Raglan.'

'But Roman said that another man ordered Cowlan out of the warehouse, and that it was this other masked man who capped Montrose,' Esposito said, thinking on the recorded conversation. 'He's the one who actually did the deed.'

'And why wear a mask unless...unless the other conspirators didn't know who he was either and he wanted to keep his identity a secret too.'

'Makes sense, so we're back at the original question. Who do we take as our crack in the dam?'

'I think I can answer that,' Ryan said, scanning a file. 'This is Elliott's service record, says he was shot in the knee while a known drug lord was resisting arrest. Guess who that drug lord was?'

'Tell me it's Julio Robinson and I will kiss you, bro,' Esposito told him.

'In the neighbourhood known as El Rey or Caballo Blanco, but the government says he was born Julio Escalante Robinson. Errh!'

Ryan squawked and made a face like he'd swallowed a mouthful of vinegar when his partner reached over and gripped his head in his substantial hands and gave him a hard kiss, like Michael and Fredo in _The Godfather Part II_. 'What was that for?'

'I told you if it was Julio Robinson I'd kiss you.'

'That's a saying, like bite my ass or- no don't even think about it!'

'Yeah, I'd rather save the nibbling for Meredeth.' Esposito gave them a wink. 'She's got better tits than you.'

'Gentlemen.' Montgomery walked back in. 'Why are we talking about breasts, fascinating a topic as that always is?'

Beckett instinctively folded her arms over her chest; she was suddenly aware of being the only woman in the room. 'We've found a tangible link between Elliott and Julio Robinson,' she told him, and detailed Elliott's shooting.

'I remember that, it was one of the first major attempts to bring in Julio Robinson but he skated, though God knows why when he shot a cop.'

'According to this, there wasn't enough hard evidence for a conviction, which means Julio had grease in the right places to make sure he slid through. Plus George Elliott stayed on the job, moved to Records at the seven-two.'

'The inside paper man,' Montgomery concluded and tapped the file. 'He'll be the first one to roll.'

'But he wasn't part of the murder of Montrose,' Adam, started, then stopped, frowned and went back. 'Wait. Wait, Montrose requested information Robinson, right? Who his contacts were, previous arrest records, and that would have gone through Elliott.'

'He's our man,' Beckett said definitively, then frowned. 'Sir, just to play devil's advocate, how do we bring him in? We have no proof he is actually tied to Raglan's murder.'

'Exactly how you know you will. Wanted in questioning over possible connection between Mike Doran and John Raglan's deaths. He'll know he's screwed if we have enough to pull him in for questioning. Go pick him up,' Montgomery told them. It took them about three seconds to spring to action, and when Adam remained seated poring through sheets, he leaned over and said, 'When I give my men orders, they are followed, Brennan.'

Adam's head whipped around. 'Sir?'

'Your team is going into the field. Get your shit together and roll out.'

'Yes sir, of course, sir, right away, sir.'

Adam nearly upended his chair in his haste to get out the door and fought the blush when he saw the other detectives strapping on their Kevlar. 'I don't even have a weapon,' he said lamely, then felt his eyes go wide when Beckett handed him her clutch piece.

'Montgomery issued a temporary carry license for you when he officially reassigned you as a civilian consultant to this case.'

Adam felt a lump lodge in his throat, cleared it lightly as he clipped on the holster. 'What, and the best I can get is this Noisy Cricket?'

'You're worse than those two,' Beckett said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the Ry-Sposito monster, who were checking their Glock magazines. 'You ride with Espo, Ryan rides with me.'

* * *

><p>Elliott lived close to the seven-two, which made sense; the man had a bum knee very similar to Cam George's injury so mobility was an issue. That meant the Kevlar and using Adam and Ryan as back-up on the ground was probably overkill but Beckett was taking no chances. She had her hand on her weapon as she pounded on the apartment door.<p>

'George Elliott, NYPD open up! We have some questions for you!'

The door opened, and a dull grey eye peered from the minuscule crack. 'Yeah?'

'We need you to come downtown to answer some questions regarding the death of John Ragl- no, no, no!'

The eye disappeared and Esposito kicked the door wide open, tackled Elliott who was going for the fire escape on the far side of the living room. The two men crushed the coffee table like it was made of Popsicle sticks, and Esposito slapped his cuffs on the man.

'What you think, Beckett does that count as resisting arrest?'

'I didn't kill John,' Elliott spat viciously, 'but you get me a deal, I'll tell you who did.'

Beckett gestured with her weapon for Esposito to back off, and she lowered her face near Elliott's. 'My name is Detective Kate Beckett. My mother was Johanna Beckett. You remember that name? That name means you get no deal, and you'll still spill your guts to me.'

'Bitch.'

'Damn right I am. Take him to the car, Espo.'


	27. I Fought the Law by The Clash

_Hello everyone! So glad you're hanging with me on this one! I have to say this is hands down the most challenging of the Crumbsverse stories I've ever written but I am also very very proud of it and I hope you're love reading it as much I am loving writing it!_

* * *

><p>As Elliott had no injuries that needed treatment, he was moved right into an Interview room where Adam and Esposito thought he should stew awhile, but Beckett said no, that would give him time to get his story straight, and Ryan fell somewhere in the middle.<p>

'Who you want in there,' Montgomery said.

'I think we should go in first,' Ryan said, jerking his thumb at himself and Esposito. 'Soften him up and then you go for the kill and we take his statement when he gets to the drippy-eyes-loosened-bladder phase.'

'Delightful as that sounds, Detective Ryan, we're sending in the hippo first.'

'The what?'

'Adam, he's our hippo.' Beckett patted him on the shoulder. 'Just like with Cowlan.'

'I don't understand, I'm a hippo?'

'Trust me, you're a hippo. Take five minutes, get some questions together and you'll get him on his heels first.'

Adam looked at Beckett like she'd done gone cuckoo-bananas-batshit crazy. 'Okay,' he said warily, and left Observation; the moment he was gone Esposito and Ryan stared with the same expression Adam had worn.

'Beckett, are you fucking nuts?' Esposito hissed. 'I know Elliott's been read his rights already and Adam's got an official status, but this is really pushing it.'

'Elliott's a panicked, cornered animal, there's no telling what he'll do,' Ryan added, but Beckett shut them both up with a single look.

'You two did not see him with Cowlan. He will bring it.'

Montgomery saved the chuckle for later, as he knew there was little more Beckett enjoyed proving the girl in the room was the head girl for a reason. They watched as Elliott picked his nails, scratched his nose and tried to calm himself down, then as Adam went in.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,' he said, walking in with his little notepad and several sharpened pencils.

'You don't look like a cop,' Elliott sneered.

'I'm a civilian consultant, just doing some background information checking for the detectives. They're busy, you know, have to make sure this is worth their time.'

'Never had to hire out the help when I was in uniform,' Elliott snarked, leaned back in his chair when he realized he was now receiving an audience. 'What you wanna know?'

'You started out in Narcotics at the seven-two, right? Even as a rookie?'

'Yeah, you could say that me and my pals at the Academy, we had the nose for narco.'

'Would those pals be Frank Cowlan, Christopher Spitzer and John Raglan?'

'The first two, sure, but Raglan was in for the blood. He barely did a year in narco before he went to Homicide.'

Adam scribbled furiously, then purposefully broke his pencil tip, dropped his pencil. 'Sorry, about that.'

In observation, Ryan squinted, then grinned as Adam's notepad tipped towards the one-way glass as he leaned down - _Admitted connection to 3 Musketeers_. 'Son of a bitch, he is good.' He turned to Beckett and looked at her. 'Okay, he's a hippo.'

'Someone wanna catch me up?' Esposito asked.

'It came up one girls night that Ryan is a dolphin - he seems all cute and cuddly, but underneath he's a shit-kicking bad-ass. Adam is the same way,' Beckett explained. 'Everyone who sees him sees a young, pretty, and probably very green and most certainly very dumb rookie. But we all know he's got some teeth in his head and he knows how to bite.'

'And hippos do too? Seriously, hippos?'

'A hippo has teeth the size of bowling pins,' Montgomery supplied, then shrugged when they looked at him. 'Liz loves _Animal Planet_.'

'Hippo,' Esposito repeated, then continued to watch the show as Adam continued his rope-a-dope routine with Elliott.

Adam, unaware of the high praise he was getting on the other side of Observation, continued his so-called background check. 'Why did you go into Records so quickly?'

'Kid, you get a lot of knocks on the street, you learn that sometimes life has other plans for you as a cop.' Elliott rapped his knee. 'Took a hit here barely five years into my service before I was riding a desk.'

'Yet you still hold the rank of Detective-Sergeant.'

'Pity-prize. I was already a detective when I got shot, and what the hell does this have to do with anything?'

'Just following orders, sir,' Adam replied, knowing the man saw him as nothing more than a spineless civilian in big flashing letters. 'What makes you think the promotion was a pity-prize?'

'Because the guys higher up on the food chain gave me that instead of letting me back on the streets. Put me in charge of snot-nosed whelps and then when I said I wasn't no baby-sitter, I was moved into Records where I could be the scowly old-timer and not get shit for it.'

'Interesting, interesting, so you weren't around in the narcotics bureau when Matthew Montrose was murdered?'

'That's my cue,' Beckett said and took a few huffy breaths, then looked at Esposito. 'Tell me something to piss me off.'

'Every time you reach for your desk phone, Castle looks down your blouse,' Ryan said, and Beckett rolled her eyes.

'Something on the job.'

'Karpowski scored higher than you on the lieutenant's exam,' Esposito offered.

'Good, she deserves to make lieutenant.'

Montgomery looked at her, and with soulful eyes that were the antithesis of his words, said bluntly, 'You can't get him to crack.'

'Thank you sir.' Beckett curled her lip in distaste, stamped the 'fuck you' expression on her face and marched out of Observation into the interview room looking like she was going to kick Adam's ass all the way to the street. 'What the fuck is this, you think you can come in here and interview _my_ suspect, Brennan?' she barked, and was pleased when Adam broke the tip of his pencil.

'I'm sorry, sir, Beckett, I just wanted to help-'

'Well then help me by getting me some coffee and get out of here! Now!'

The moment he was clear of the door, Adam found Ryan and Esposito there clapping him on the back.

'You did good, kid,' Esposito told him. 'Let's finish watching the show.'

Back in Interrogation, Beckett watched the delight in Elliott's eyes and could have backhanded him out of the chair for that alone. This kind of slug didn't deserve the badge he'd hid behind for so long. 'I do apologize, Detective-Sergeant, but he is a little too eager for his own good.'

'Yeah, Frank told me how he tried to get the dirt on him a day or two ago.'

'I'm surprised you had time to talk to him, seeing how you were so busy eating Swiss chocolate treats courtesy of Camilla.'

She knew it was sick of her, but the way every last drop of blood drained from Elliott's already pale face. Leaning forward, she folded her hands on the table. 'Yeah, I've been doing my homework, George, you're not just some wild goose I'm hunting for fun. So let's start at the top.'

'I want my lawyer,' he spluttered.

'Fine, then you go back into Holding and we'll wait for a lawyer, and I'll use that time to collect up all the papers I've got showing you in bed with dirty cops.'

'Dirty- now wait just a minute, here, who the hell said anythign about dirty cops?'

'You did, when you admitted you knew who killed John Raglan. Oh and the only deal you're getting is the one to keep air in your lungs,' she added, rubbing that bit of salt in the wound. 'Talked to the DA before we came to get you at home, and he said no one gets a free pass on this one. So you have two options.'

Beckett stood now, pacing casually behind her chair as she spoke. 'One, you start singing now and you will probably spend the rest of your pathetic, wasted life in a cage with no chance of getting back out. Or two you shut your mouth and the others will think you were in here talking to the cops and you'll go the way of Matthew Montrose and Timo Ross, Johanna Beckett and Jarrad Brennan, and everyone else you sons of bitch are responsible for. Your move, Elliott.'

'I'm a detective-sergeant, you will address me by rank. I'm a cop, same as you,' Elliott replied stiffly and this time Beckett got in his face into his so her nose was millimetres from his.

'Don't you dare call yourself a cop in my presence, don't you _fucking_ dare. That kid who came in here, he got booted off the force because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to do the right thing and in my opinion he's more of a cop now than you could possibly dream of being. You have thirty seconds to decide what you are going to do. Talk and live, walk and die.'


	28. So Much to Say by The Dave Matthews Band

'Okay. I'll talk.'

Beckett eased back slightly. 'All of it, no bullshitting or record be damned, things will get rough in here.'

'I'll talk,' Elliott repeated; sweat was visibly running down his pasty skin in small rivers as he watched Beckett sit back down across from him, her dark eyes never leaving his face.

'Let's start with Records at the seven-two. Why are there two full boxes with murders spanning twenty years in a single box with the same file code?'

'They're all related.'

'How do you know that?'

Elliott sighed, shook his head and to Beckett's surprise his eyes filled. 'I can't tell you that, I'm a dead man if I do.'

'You're a dead man if you walk out of here to begin with, you already know that George. Out with it.'

'Okay, there's a couple of guys I know from back before I was a desk jockey, they pulled down some major cases and would come to me, saying can you file this special for me in case something goes missing.'

'That sounds pretty sketchy to me, George.'

'Tell me about it,' Elliott scoffed, then felt the spit dry up in his mouth when Beckett blinked; it made him think of a deadly and regal lady cobra about to strike.

'Now tell me the truth.'

'Huh?'

'Man, you really are the weak link if you think I'm going to buy that. My men and I went through all the files in there and they are all murder cases. The biggest unit out of the seven-two is narcotics and those files span over decades of murders, so you tell the truth right now.'

'What you think you're going to get out of this? Huh?' Now Elliott's tone was weary. 'Even if you get me to spill my guts you don't got the balls to get the others.'

'Watch me. Spill it, Elliott, or I'll go get my bad cops. I'm a kitty-cat compared to them.'

'Okay, okay, okay!'

Beckett watched him straighten his collar, then lean back. He was no longer trying to figure out the angle how to play her but trying to figure out how to simply stay alive without pissing off an already irate cop.

'Listen, it's...it's complicated and it's a long story.'

'I've got time, but that story can wait. Right now I want to know everything you know about Officer Matthew Montrose's murder.'

'Montrose?' Elliott shook his head like a dog coming out of the water. 'What's he got to do with John's murder?'

'Everything. Tell me what you know.'

'Only a little bit. That mope they pinned it on was a patsy, he had nothing to do with anything except following Montrose around like a little puppy dog and that's why he was set up.'

'Who really pulled the trigger on Montrose?' Beckett asked bluntly.

'I don't know, I swear I don't. All I know is that Spitzer, Cowlan and Raglan said that Montrose recognized their cars once too often in the neighbourhood and they said Montrose had to go or it would blow the whole thing sky-high.'

'What whole thing?'

'Their dirty money scam, what else?'

'Is that what you mean when you said 'Camilla' to Spitzer? You were reaping the benefits of the money scam?'

Beckett held her breath, wondered if George was going to freeze up and suddenly cry lawyer once more. To her utter relief, he didn't do a damn thing except continue to sing better than Inva Mula.

'Yeah, but why they called it that, I don't know.'

'How did they get you involved?'

'After I got shot, when we went to take down Julio Robinson, I was lain up in the hospital, and Cowlan was sitting beside my bed. I was in a private room and he told me my bill was covered and I'd pay him back in time, and Julio Robinson would pay what he owed me. I had no idea what he meant until one day I was in physio, and he passed me a little slip of paper, said this would make the rainy-days better.'

'The codes for the Switzerland accounts?' Beckett asked, then rose and knocked on the glass, signaling for her men. 'How do those work?'

'Honestly, I barely touch mine, but I like knowing it's there. Now, Mikey, he was dumb, he would dip in at the wrong times.'

Beckett answered the knock on the door, took the file Ryan passed her. She scanned the page, then sat back down. 'Would that be account Foxtrot-Alpha-two-one-two-Delta-seven-seven-Sierra-Romeo-eight-nine-Echo-Charlie?'

'English?'

'F-A-two-one-two-D-seven-seven-S-R-eight-nine-E-C. Is that the account?'

'That's Mike's account. Mine is F-A-two-one-four-D-seven-seven-S-R-eight-nine-E-C. Passcode is umbrella.'

'Tell me something George.' Beckett wrote it down, then looked at him. 'Did you pool money with Spitzer, Raglan, Mike, and Cowlan?'

'Mike wasn't part of your mom's deal.'

'Were you?'

Eliott hung his head. 'Yes,' he told the floor. 'We all pooled our money, paid that son of a bitch to get her out of the way, her and the other nosy asshole who had no right doing what they were doing. Only...only Dick Coonan said he knew who we were and we had to double his fee so he wouldn't blab who we were.'

'What about the guy who pumped Matthew Montrose full of lead? Was that Coonan too?'

'No, like I said I had no idea who that really was. If you're so keen to know, go find Spitzer and he can tell you.'

'Okay. You're going in now George.'

'Wait, that's it?'

'What do you mean that's it?' Beckett looked at him, and was stunned to find he was actually relieved. 'You just admitted to a whole host of crimes, not the least of which is conspiracy to murder and racketeering. You'll be lucky if you ever breathe natural air again.'

Beckett rapped the glass with her fist, and Julian and another officer came into the room to escort Elliott back to Holding where he would be processed for his lifetime of misdeeds. 'He does not get moved from here until we bring in the others.'

'Good luck, Detective Beckett,' Elliott called over his shoulder, 'you're going to need it.'

Beckett watched him escorted off, then blew out a breath as the rest of her team joined her out of Observation. She closed her eyes when she felt the pat of Captain Montgomery's hand on her shoulder. 'Sir,' was all she said.

'I think there's times when I've been prouder of you Kate, but I can't think of them just now,' he said softly, then checked his watch. 'It's only an hour until end of shift. Go home, spend some time with Rick.'

'I believe I will.'

Montgomery looked at them all. 'Same goes for the rest of you. Adam, if you like, my missus said you're invited for dinner to our house tonight.'

'Thank you sir.' Despite wanting a night alone, given that Adam saw the others order their families out of the city for their own protection he knew it would be a better idea to be around people than on his own and vulnerable. 'I appreciate the offer when you've done so much for me already.'

'You've proven your mettle, Adam, it's the least I can do for you.'

The look of gratitude and humility on Adam's face stayed with Beckett as she drove home, her radar still up as she made her way there. The moment she was through the door, she wasn't surprised to find Shane, Jim, and Martha all waiting with her husband; when they fired off questions at her like machine gun bullets, Beckett simply held her hands up.

'I will tell you exactly what happened, as soon as I get out of my boots and someone gets me a drink.'

'Here.' Castle passed her a glass of red wine. 'Alexis called, she said that RJ and Jojo are very excited to have their very first grown-up bros-and-sisters only trip but it would be more fun with Shane there.'

'We can't risk it,' Beckett said.

'What the hell is going on?' Martha demanded, and her diva-like sensibilities faded as Beckett told her about Goddard and his threats to her outside Rikers. When she'd finished, Martha's eyes went hard and bright. 'You did the right thing, darling and if he eve nthinks of sniffign around here to hurt you or my son, or anyone else I love, they are in for a world of hurt.'

Beckett could only laugh at such fierce determination. 'Oh, Martha, you would have made an ace in Interview.'

'I need a moment with Kate,' Castle told them all, and took her wineglass as they dispersed. 'Kate, you did the right thing,' he said quietly when they had a little more privacy.

'I know. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do but no-one is getting their filthy hands on my babies. All three of them.'


	29. If My Heart Had Wings by Faith Hill

No one stayed for dinner, which made Beckett even happier. She sat in front of the roaring fire, chin resting on her tucked up knees. She wanted to cry it out as she'd done every night that week since Raglan had been shot by Goddard. He was still in the wind and there was the possibility he might go after Christine yet at the hospital. She'd called over and learned she was still there, would still be there because she might need a second surgery.

Would he try to get to her in the hospital? Or would this mysterious man in the mask out of Roman's story pull strings to keep Christine safe? What about the rest of them, she should be going after them now, which was what she-

'Here. Drink this.'

Beckett looked up when Castle handed her another glass of wine. 'This will be three on an almost empty stomach, Castle,' she told him.

'I know, Meredeth dropped off calzones this morning.'

'Have you talked to her? How is she without the kids around?'

'About as good as you are right now.'

'So she's a mess too?'

Castle laughed, nodded as he sat beside her. 'It's a tough spot to be in, but my, God, Kate, I don't think I've ever been prouder of you.'

'Really?'

'The only thing I think that tops it is the births of RJ and Jojo, and when we gave Alexis away at her wedding.'

'She's my daughter.'

'I know.' Castle let out a shaky breath. 'I know that, and I have to remind myself sometimes she didn't come from your body. She loves you so much.'

'Richard, I can't think of them right now, or I will break and I can't break yet. I am so close and there is so much for me to do yet.'

'Tell me what lies ahead of you.'

'Arresting Spitzer, arresting Cowlan, going after those pricks in IA who tried to stonewall us because they're part of it, and figuring out who the damned masked man is, and arresting his oily ass.' Beckett paused. 'Castle, can I tell you something?'

'Sure.'

'When this is all said and done, I will make the push to Sean Delancy for Adam Brennan to be reinstated as a rookie uniform into the Twelfth, under me in Homicide.' She looked over at him, tilted her head. 'You don't seem terribly surprised.'

'I'm not,' he replied honestly, wrapping an arm around her body to pull her close against him. 'Because Adam was protecting the one he loved and he got screwed. This case has shown him to be a man of exceptional moral character who took great personal risks, time and effort to do the job.'

'We treated him like a rookie cop on this anyways, dumped a lot of grunt work on him and he ate it up like chocolate.'

'Let me ask you a question, then. If he was still in uniform and assigned to this case with you, would you have treated him any differently?'

'No. No, I wouldn't because in my mind he was still a cop, despite what the paperwork might say. And he's got some of the best interview skills I've ever seen, even better than you taking me down the first time we worked a case together.'

'That's saying something.'

'It's like watching Ali do his rope-a-dope thing,' Beckett went on, and Castle saw her hand with the wineglass wobble a little. 'He, like, gets in their head space, it's a thing of beauty.'

'Speaking of beauty, why don't I put the calzones Meredeth dropped off for us into the oven and we ease off the wine until dinner time?'

She frowned but realized when it took her twice the time to blink as it normally did, she gave a sloppy nod. 'Good idea.'

'Want a little nap while we wait?'

'Mmm, okee.' Beckett reached over and grabbed the throw pillow off the armchair, tipped over on the floor where she was. 'Blanket?'

Knowing it was better to let her lie where she was than convince her to move to their bed upstairs or even the couch less than a foot away, Castle pulled the throw blanket up over her body, then found a second pillow and positioned himself so he watched the firelight flicker over her closed eyes.

She was so troubled awake but here, asleep, she was peaceful and innocent, like their babies. Even Alexis, who had lived overseas on her own and had been married and suffered a miscarriage. There was so much about her that was still so innocent compared to Beckett and Castle knew his wife would do whatever it took to keep that innocence in her children's lives.

But for now, she would rest and recharge so that she could get up and face it all the next day.

Castle didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until the ringing phone was startling him awake. 'Hello,' he answered sleepily.

'Hi Daddy, did I wake you up from naptime?'

'Hey, RJ, you did,' Castle replied on a yawning smile. 'Mumum is still sleeping, she is very tired.'

'She is working hard to get the bad guys,' RJ said sombrely. 'Good thing Alexis invited us to Flor'da so that we are safe an' sound.'

Castle wanted to weep as RJ showed off that innocence he'd just been thinking of, then looked at Beckett who had turned her eyes up to his. 'Who is it?' she mouthed. 'RJ?'

He nodded, then said to his son, 'RJ, Mumum's awake would you like to say hi?'

'Yes please.'

Beckett held out a hand for the phone and smiled when she heard RJ and Jojo on the other end; RJ was evidently telling Jojo to leave his Cheerios alone. 'RJ? Is that my little prince?'

'Hi-hi, Mumum! I miss you already, but Terrance has oranges ev-er-ywhere, and guess what!'

'What's that?'

'My Trini and Leo and their 'buelo is coming tonight too!'

'They are?' Beckett knew her role and infused enthusiasm into her voice.

'Uh-huh, Terrance said that he was Meredeth's momo's swee'heart and he is like a mo'fa to Meredeth's babies. What's a momo and mo'fa?'

'Well, you know how Meredeth is Danish, right? That's the words in Danish for grandma and grandpa.'

'Ohh, and in Suh-panish, it is 'buela and 'buelo right?'

'That's right,' Beckett laughed. 'Are you going to bring me back some orange juice?'

'Uh-huh, and a suh-pecial somethin' when we go to the Bushy Garden!' The sound of Terrance speaking to RJ while Jojo babbled in the background distracted RJ and he came back in a few. 'Terrance and Jojo wanna say hi-hi, Mumum. Jojo has to go first be-cause she is smaller. I love you, Mumum.'

'I love you too RJ.' Beckett couldn't stop the smile as she heard RJ tell his sister to speak loud and clear. 'Hey bumblebee!'

'Hi-hi Mumum! Talkin' phone!'

'We are talking on the phone. Did you like going in the airplane with Alexis and RJ?'

'Lou'. No like lou'.'

'I know, sweetie, but you are going to have lots of fun on your little vacation.'

'See soo' ?' Jojo asked plaintively and Beckett's courage wavered a little.

'You will see me soon. And when you do, we are having a huge party, with cake and ice cream.'

'An' joos?'

'And juice,' Beckett agreed. 'Jojo, I love you and I need to talk to Terrance.'

'Okay. Love Mumum.'

She held it together with a fortitude that Castle admired, and he held her hand as she listened to their children. She squeezed his hand tightly when Terrance came on the line and told her not to worry about her children, to focus on her job since her loved ones were safe and sound with him.

'This is going to be wrapped up soon, so when Alexis has to leave, don't worry about convincing her to stay in town,' Beckett told him.

'Kate, the only person I trust more than you in this world is Meredeth and since she's sent her babies down here, I will believe you when you say it's safe for them to go home.'

'Thank you Terrance.'

'Meredeth is family and you are hers. You don't need to thank me.'

'Thank you all the same. I need to go, I need food and sleep.'

'I'll check in with your man tomorrow.'

Beckett hung up and smelled the scent of baked pizza dough, tomatoes, cheese and veggies. She didn't realize how hungry she was until she smelled Meredeth's cooking in the kitchen. She almost laughed when the phone rang in her hand again, but it died when she saw it was her captain.

'Sir?'

'Beckett, I know I said go home and rest, but we just had two uniforms take Nicholas Goddard into custody.'


	30. Taking Care of Business by BTO

Beckett was licking calzone sauce off of her fingers as she stepped off the elevator into Homicide with Castle hot on her heels.

'Refresh me again who Nick Goddard is?'

'The sniper who threatened me at Rikers and the same one who shot John Raglan. This is going to be quick and dirty.'

She met Montgomery outside the interrogation room, and met his cool-eyed stare with one of her own. 'Sir, this won't be the piece of theatre the interview with George Elliott was. This guy will answer in very yes-no terms and that's all we are going to need from him.'

'Good. Go to it.'

Castle watched her walk into the interrogation room, but rather than stalk like the panther he knew she could be, he watched her sit down and treat it like a clinical Q&A.

_State your name for the record._

_Nicholas D. Goddard._

_You live at 343 East Thirty-Third Street, apartment five-zero-one?_

_Yes, that is correct._

_You are formerly of the United State Marine Corps where you earned commendations for your special skills as a sniper, corect?_

_Yes, a combat medal and other honours.  
><em>

'Why is she establishing baseline with this guy when she knows that it will be a grapefruit of an interview?' Castle asked Montgomery.

'So that she can show this man has no remorse or compunction about what he did,' he replied. 'She is fact-checking with a hired gun. Just watch.'

_Have you ever been used for contract killing before?_

_Yes but this was the first time I worked for a civilian body_

_Who contacted you?_

_He didn't give me his name._

_Who paid you?_

_Guy who hired me said it was on behalf of several people but the money came from some dude named Spitzer. Corey, or Christian, something like that._

_Christopher?_

_Yeah, Christopher Spitzer  
><em>

'Now she's got the guy coughing up a confirming name that we have from at least two other sources plus evidence culled from good, hard police work,' the captain murmured. He watched Beckett calmly make notes as the man spoke; it was hard to believe this controlled woman was the same one who'd been a fire-breathing bad cop that very same afternoon.

_How did you receive this information on who your target would be?_

_Email. He said I had to be at the northeast corner of Eighth Avenue and West Forty-Seventh on Tuesday morning. I had to wait until the car with a certain license plate got smashed up by the first hitmen, then once the lady driver was clear, my job was to take out her passenger.  
><em>

_What was the handle on this email?_

_It was Edmund Dantes. Just like out of that old French guy's book, the sandwich guy.'_

'Why is he giving this up so easily,' Castle wondered as his writer's heart fought not to leap on Goddard for so woefully mangling _The Count of Monte Cristo_. 'Most hired killers are screaming lawyer until their lungs bleed.'

'This guy is in it for the money, not the love of the kill. Guys like that will sell out their own mothers to the cops.'

Montgomery knocked on the one-way glass to signal Beckett it was time for a break; when she met them in the Observation room, he looked at her and said, 'You buying this?'

'Yeah, he knows too many details not to be present and it would take more work and more phone calls for one of the men we've got on the ropes to get in touch with him to set him up like they did to Roman Moore. Even a quick 'meet me here to talk' would have been on our radar,' Beckett replied smoothly. 'What, you think this is too easy for him to give this all up?'

'I bet he's got marching orders that if he got scooped up by the cops he tells them everything than offs himself,' Castle theorized.

'That's probably true, Rick, but right now he is giving me a hell of a lot more than I had three hours ago on Spitzer. Add this to the information we found out about his financial records, which show regular transfers into his account from an account named to Camilla Streets. And we need to find out about this Edmund Dantes, if he's just a name ripped from literature or if there is a reason that name was chosen.'

'That can wait until morning, when we have Adam back in the saddle,' Montgomery told her. 'Once you are done here, you are going home for rest. It's been a busy, shitty day full of promise for more arrests, but remember Kate, we need to pace this. We need to take each step with a clear head and make sure that we are getting everything possible to bury these bastards.'

'I know that too sir.'

'Then wrap this guy up and have him put in Holding, but separate cells than George Elliott. No reason to have a potential death match on our hands.'

* * *

><p>The last details Beckett wrung from Goddard meant he wasn't going anywhere and that the next morning, combined with the information they'd already pulled, they would have enough for an arrest warrant on Christopher Spitzer for even more crimes than George Elliott and he'd gotten an ass-load of them himself.<p>

What wrapping him up meant most to Beckett was that she could go home and get the much needed rest her captain had all but ordered her to take. The moment she was through the door at home, she began to strip, the physical layers giving her tangible things to tug at as her wheels still churned.

She left a trail of her clothes until she was in just her bra and panties as she walked into the ensuite bathroom of the bedroom and began to run the tub. She sat on top of the closed toilet lid as she watched the water gush and gurgle from the spout, registering Castle's footsteps as part of the natural background noise of the home.

'Kate,' he started but she looked over and he cut himself off.

'Castle, I need to let it go for a few hours. I need to just let it go. It's...I didn't realize until we sent them away how much our children were keeping me balanced and focused. I could shut down when I needed to because I have my babies needing me. Now they're not here and there is just you, but you go with me wherever I need to go, and right now I need you to be the centre of it.'

'Okay.' He loved her, so in his mind when she asked this of him, it was no imposition, it was his job as her husband to do what she asked of him. 'What do you need from me right now.'

'I need my Castle, the one who pulls my pigtails and kicks my ass when I have self-doubt.

'Kate.' Castle moved over to her and plucked up her hands, kissed the knuckles. 'I will always be there to pull your pigtails, and you have much less self doubt on your mother's case than before. I know you will get these bastards and I will be there when you do.'

Beckett smiled at him, put her hand to his cheek as she remembered that promise from nine years before. She's wanted to reach out and touch him then, but she'd been so scared to do it that she'd instead picked up her chopsticks for the Thai food he'd brought her, and gone the schoolyard route of picking bits of water-chestnut from his plate.

'I love you so much,' she told him.

'I love you right back,' he replied. Turning around he tested the water for her, and since it would make a lobster cry uncle, he figured it was just right for his bride; the woman loved boiling hot baths. 'You want some of your salts?'

'Please.'

He found the tube of them underneath the sink and tipped them in, then pulled her to her feet and in a show of unending love for her, unsnapped her bra and slipped it from her body, helped her out of her panties and gracefully held her hand so she wouldn't slip getting into the tub. Castle pressed the wall-button for the jacuzzi jets.

'There. Get yourself all hot and bubbly, then come to bed and I'll finish the job for you.'

He did indeed finish the job for her, making her ache for him with a need she'd never known. When they'd finished and were still wrapped together in their bed, Beckett stroked her hands through his hair, let herself feel the smoothness of his skin, the texture of it. Here was love, solid and real in her life and no-one would take that from her.

'You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Richard,' she murmured.

'Same goes, Katie-Lou. Try to get some rest.'


	31. Little Deuce Coupe by The Beach Boys

**JANUARY 8TH**

When Beckett awoke the next morning at five-thirty she felt like a new woman - food, sex and sleep was an age-old combination that never failed to recharge the body. As promised, Castle was riding with her that morning; she had no shame whatsoever when it was time to hit the road that he drove while she chewed on the breakfast burrito he'd made for her while she mulled things over.

'George is in holding, we have Spitzer on suicide watch in solitary, so today we go after the big boys.'

'Spitzer and Cowlan?'

'And Aaron Attwood by way of Blake Holmes.' Beckett took another bite, letting the fluffy eggs, the sharp cheese, become her focus while her brain clickety-clacked in hyper-drive. 'The way I see it, since Cowlan was on the point of retiring when Mike Doran went down, Mike was being primed to take over his position in the business. Attwood has the same number of years in Cowlan had so he's got himself a protege and I'd bet a month's supply of Meredeth's enchiladas that Holmes brought in Maggie Cruz as well.'

'That has to be tough for Adam,' Castle commented as he turned north towards Houston Street, then west towards Avenue of the Americas. 'He lost his mother to a heart attack, his father was murdered and it was covered up-'

'He found the body, too. I didn't know that before. Adam found his father's body.'

'Shit. All of that,' he continued, 'and then he finds out one of his childhood friends is on the take?'

'You see now why it mattered even more to me for him to have this chance at redemption.' Beckett rolled her eyes when Castle took her hand in his and pressed her knuckles to his lips. 'Come on, this is a multiple-pronged homicide investigation. No time for mushy.'

'I suppose you're right seeing as when we had sex last night I wasn't at all...mushy.'

'There, see, that's more like it.' She needed the crude, the crass, to get her through this next step. 'You're going to be with Esposito on financial records, since you both have a good head for that.'

'Outstanding. What about the others?'

'Ryan and I are still sifting through the reports and the details of busts where Montrose would have crossed paths with either Julio Robinson or one of his boys, but...'

'But you don't think that's where you'll find it?'

'No, I think it's in the others and that's where I need Adam and Montgomery.'

'Montgomery?' Castle's head whipped over to her as he braked for a red light at Twenty-Second Street. 'He's working with you on this?'

'Rolled up his sleeves and jumped right in.'

Beckett's cellphone went off and when she saw the incoming ID was the captain, she gulped down the last mouthful of her breakfast. 'Sir, I'm on my way in. We need more than the flags on Blake and Attwood's financials they-'

'Those flags just popped. They bought tickets out of the country.'

'Do we know where they're going?' Beckett sat up straighter and Castle pulled off into a parking spot by a dog-groomer's shop. She unfastened her seatbelt and popped out of the passenger's side to trade places with her husband.

'Holmes is going to Ecuador and Attwood's going to Costa Rica.'

Non-extradition countries, she thought with a sick panic. 'Call the FAA, get them-'

'Kate, I've already called JFK's head of security and the FAA. They'll be detained the moment their passports are cleared.'

'What about Elliott and Goddard? We can't risk them seeing each other in Holding.'

'I've pulled in Karpowski, Newman and Geoffs, they are going to be at the Twelfth within ten minutes to keep on them. They know it's part of the Raglan homicide and they know it's bigger than just those two. They've got their standing orders to hold them until they hear from you.'

'Yes sir. On my way now, will meet you at the Terminal Four dropoff.'

Beckett tossed her cellphone to Castle, and flipped on the lights, floored the gas pedal. 'We're on the goddamn total fucking opposite side of the city, goddammit move!' she roared as she saw a lumbering garbage truck plod towards the intersection of Avenue of the Americas and Thirty-First Street. She whipped the wheel into a hard right, so hard that Castle gripped the holy-shit handle just above his rolled-up window.

'Kate, killing us in the process of getting to the bad guys would defeat the purpose, no?' he asked her in a high-pitched voice as his cop drove like a getaway man on speed.

'Castle, shut up,' she replied through clenched teeth, banking south when she reached Madison Avenue and headed for Queens. 'Or I will dump you out of this car and then we'll see how clever you are with high-octane road-rash on your face.'

He shut his mouth and when Beckett's cellphone chirped he answered it. 'Beckett's phone.'

'It's Esposito, we're at the airport, just got word Holmes went through security and he's been detained.'

'Anyways he could let Attwood know he's in the stir?'

'No, no cellphones allowed where he is. Tell Kate we've brief with Montgomery and Adam, they're waiting for her. Attwood hasn't tried to clear security yet, probably some three-step system he's got with Blake. We'll know when he does.'

'Got it.'

Castle hung up, clenched his eyes shut as Beckett whistled past a pair of taxis with barely a coat of paint to spare. 'Kate, my treasure, that was Espo, they've got Blake in holding at the airport, they're going to transport him back to the Twelfth and that the captain and Adam are waiting for word on Attwood's movements.'

'Mother of fucking God, get out of the fucking way!'

Beckett laid on the horn despite the fact her sirens were going full tilt and she nearly rear-ended a delivery van; she zipped into the oncoming traffic lane where vehicles parted like the Red Sea before Moses, then turned east until she was on the bridge to Queens. 'Sorry, what did you say?'

'I don't remember, I think I left my brain back on Wall Street.'

'Castle!'

'Just trying for a little levity,' he told her, and knew there would be a better time to joke. 'Esposito and Ryan have Blake Holmes in holding at the airport, but there's been no movement on Attwood yet. Montgomery and Adam will meet us at Terminal Four until they receive word on Attwood or until you get there, which ever comes first.'

'Jolly good.'

They screamed to a tooth-rattling, skidding stop outside the sliding doors of Terminal Four and the moment the vehicle was in park, Beckett was out and popping the top of her weapon holster. She burst through the doors and found Montgomery alone. 'Sir, where is Adam?' she asked, struggling for calm.

'Sent him down the way in case Attwood catches sight of us, tries to rabbit,' he replied. 'We've also got top security on our side, in soft and hard clothes. He's boxed, Beckett, we just have to let him ring the bell.'

'Okay.' She looked around. She'd been there many times before with her family to welcome Alexis home and to see her off to the airport, not to mention welcoming her husband home from when he had to be away for his own work, though the majority of those days were behind him thanks to television interviews his agent set up. 'Is there a spot we can grab a coffee or...'

She trailed off when she heard a commotion at the far end of the terminal and saw a flurry of movement along with the shout of 'Attwood! Police! Stop!'

People leaped out of the way and Beckett saw one of the airport security cops stumble over the backpack Aaron Attwood had thrown in their path from his shoulder.

'Castle, move!' she ordered, as Attwood came baring down on them, still chased by Adam who was now barely out of arms' reach of the man. She moved to act as a tackling dummy, but found herself shoved out of the way by Montgomery who crouched low like a linebacker and plowed straight into Attwood, knocking him back until the man used Adam as a landing pad.

'Adam, you okay?' he asked, flipping Attwood to his face and slapping cuffs on him.

'Yeah, just a bump on the noggin.'

'Get checked out at the infirmary when we get back. Meanwhile, take this son of a bitch to Detective Beckett's car. I'll follow you back.'

Montgomery looked at his Detective and gave her a little laugh. 'You had to live on the other side of town?' he asked her and Beckett let herself laugh a little.

'Not as bad as Esposito and somehow that son of a bitch beat me here.'

'Doesn't matter, since we got both our men and we'll break them.'

'We, sir?'

'Yes.' Montgomery nodded. 'We'll break them.'


	32. Bad Things by Jace Everett

'Where's Adam?'

Beckett demanded it when Montgomery walked into observation with her and Castle as they stared at Aaron Attwood. No longer was he the snotty self-righteous bastard he'd been the day before. Now he was just like George Elliott had been - sweating buckets as he tried to figure out a way out.

'Oh, he's up in the infirmary, they want to make sure he doesn't need to get checked out for a concussion or an aneurysm,' Montgomery replied. 'How's Blake doing?'

'He agrees to taking bribes from Attwood to look the other way on certain cases Attwood was investigating but that's where it stops. Attwood never gave him names only numbers. He only started to look at things when Attwood told him that the Raglan case had to be buried and when he realized that Attwood was connected to the murder, he panicked and ran to the airport somewhere Attwood couldn't find him.'

'So he says,' Beckett scoffed. 'Doesn't matter if it's an inch or a mile, he's on their payroll and that's what we need for the ADA to get a conviction.'

'If he gets a good lawyer and gets a lighter sentence will you be okay with that?' Castle asked, and to his surprise Beckett nodded.

'He goes to trial, he's convicted and he's in prison, that's a win for me. He will know he sold his decency and his soul for a few dollars and when he hears it in black and white from Ian Link he's going to realize just how big a fuck-up he is.'

'Link's good, but the DA himself is going to try this case,' Montgomery told her, rolling up his sleeves. 'So how you want to play this guy?'

'I'm thinking that if you take the lead and let Attwood think he's off the hook, it will rock him. Too bad Adam couldn't take this one either.'

'I saw the tapes from how you got him to play Elliott yesterday. It's another brick for me to lay at Delancy's feet to get Adam reinstated.'

'I don't understand why he was booted from the force in the first place when it was a justifiable manslaughter charge and he wasn't even bound over for trial since it was obvious he was protecting his lover.'

'That's politics, Kate.' Montgomery looked at her with a grim expression. 'It had to be a unanimous vote from One-PP and he was short one vote.'

'That's disgusting, couldn't he appeal?'

'The decision from One-PP was his appeal, and they still said no. Hopefully, showing he's been an invaluable asset to this investigation might sway that final vote if he decides to re-open his appeal now that the time-limit has run out. But Adam has to wait until we wrap this, so let's go fry this bastard like a Thanksgiving turkey.'

Beckett nodded, and spared Castle a single look but it was all she needed as she saw the look in his eyes that told her no matter what he would be there for her.

She followed Montgomery into Interview and wanted to laugh at the relief on Attwood's face when he saw the captain walk in, sit down.

'Roy, thank God you're here to talk some sense into your detectives. I have no idea why they would interrupt my holiday so rudely.'

'I've spoken to my detectives, Attwood, and it's been straightened out.'

'Good, that's good to hear because rest assured once I get back to IA, you will be drowning in

'Oh, I wasn't finished, Aaron,' Montgomery went on, eyes glittering coldly at this man he'd once believed was worthy of trust, even if he was in IA. 'It's been straightened out you were part of the ring of Narcotics Bureau cops who were taking money from Julio Robinson, the same dirty cops who were involved in the murder of Matthew Montrose.'

'That is preposterous,' Attwood spluttered but Montgomery was on a roll now.

'Once we had a little chat with Roman Moore, who I just got word was transferred out of Rikers and into Five Points just last night on account that some people might get it in their heads to take a swing at him after he talked to the cops, the only way to figure that somethign like that could have been buried was to have a man in Records and a man in IA.'

'Thanks to my brain-trust,' Beckett said, rhythmically picking up the routine, 'we dug into your record. You, John Raglan, Frank Cowlan, George Elliott and Christopher Spitzer were all friends when you met in class at the Academy. If a long time friend of mine has my back like that, I'm going to guess there isn't anything in the world you wouldn't do for them, including covering up the fact one of them killed a fellow officer in cold blood.'

She leaned forward. 'Matthew had a fiancee, her name was Eleanor Barclay, they'd been together for four years and they had a two-year-old daughter named Jaime, they'd picked that name because it's French for 'I love' and they'd made that baby together when they'd gone to Paris for their one-year anniversary.'

Beckett had to pause at the next part because when she'd looked up the articles on Matthew's death and seen the mini-bio on him, she'd had to pause when the tears had come. 'She was four months pregnant when Matthew was killed, and she said that he'd taken to calling her Ellie the Belly because she was so much bigger with her second pregnancy. God only knows how, but she managed to stay strong enough to deliver a healthy boy she named after his murdered father. Did any of you stop to think about Eleanor when you murdered him, cut off that life? Did you ever stop to think that an innocent baby would never know his father or that a little girl would have her mother explain to her that Daddy wasn't coming home because the bad guys shot him?'

It made her think of Meredeth, of how she'd been older - an eleven year old - when Constance had told her that her mother had died, of how Meredeth had been the one of all of them to receive the news that her cop had been shot on the job and how strong she'd stayed through it all. Beckett studied Attwood's blank face as the image of Meredeth sitting stoically with her man flashed in her mind and knew that Attwood would never understand that kind of strength.

'No,' she decided with a grim sneer. 'No, your kind never does because the only thing a selfish, heartless motherfucker like you ever thinks about is money and covering your own ass for your own ends.'

'Detective Beckett.' Montgomery knew he was going to give her a zip-line to run on but he knew it only took his quietly authoritative mention of her name to have her quietening once more. He turned his gaze once more to Attwood. 'Aaron, you know you're sunk now, so you need to come clean with everything that you know about the murder of Matthew Montrose, and how all of this got started.'

'I want a lawyer,' Attwood demanded, 'I'll have your badges before this is done.'

'You got that ass-backwards, boy.' Now Montgomery's placid demeanour went stony and he leaned forward to push into Attwood's personal space. 'You are the one who is through, and whether or not you get the needle for conspiracy to murder no less than four people, one a police officer depends on how co-operative you are right now. Just like Elliott, just like Goddard.'

He saw the flicker of fear in Attwood's eyes. 'Yeah, we already got the guy who took out Raglan, not too hard after he got into my detective's face and Cowlan was stupid enough to use a registered cellphone to call him up for his services.'

'Now wait just a damn minute those phones are burners, they...' Attwood trailed off as he realized his fatal error. 'I want a deal.'

'The hell you're getting a deal,' Beckett began, but Montgomery held up a hand.

'Let's hear what he thinks his sorry ass deserves.'

'I tell you everything I know, turn states evidence, and I get to get on a plane to Botgota and you'll never hear from me again. Scout's honour.'

'Interesting. Here's my proposal. You tell us everything you know, and in exchange I don't snap your useless dick off like a twig for being a worthless lying sack of shit,' Montgomery replied in so chipper a tone, Beckett had to check herself from blinking in surprise. 'Maybe, if I'm feeling generous I'll tell the DA's office you co-operated and you'll get life in prison concurrent instead of consecutive sentences.'

Before Attwood could respond, there was a knock from the opposite side of the one-way glass. Beckett had Montgomery pause the interview - she didn't want to miss a single step - and both went into Observation to find Castle with his cellphone outstretched and a grim look on his face.

'It's Ryan,' he said coolly.

'Ryan?' Beckett took the phone. 'Where are you?'

'We went to pick up Spitzer. He's been dead about ten hours, shot three times point blank in the head.'


	33. Redemption Song by John Legend

_So here it is kids! This is the beginning of the end, this is the first part of the big reveal of what exactly happened in the Crumbsverse that cause Johanna Beckett's murder. I've worked very hard on this and I hope you leave your love in review form!_

* * *

><p>'Get Pearlmutter on scene, now, Ryan,' Beckett demanded, pacing the Observation room as she barked out the order. 'And no one so much as as posts the crime-scene tape if you don't clear them.'<p>

'Pearlmutter's already here, Beckett, and we are going to be on CSU like ugly on an ape until we're satisified. What?' Ryan shouted to someone on his end of the phone. 'Yeah, go find Detective Esposito and ask him, he's got all that info.'

'Ryan do your thing there, we'll keep leaning on Attwood here.'

Beckett hung up the phone and glared through the glass at Attwood, who was waiting with Montgomery; neither one spoke a word.

'Spitzer's dead,' she told Castle bluntly, dully, 'and that son of a bitch knows who did, and why and what the reason behind it all is.'

'Kate, before you go charging in there, remember that however satisfying it might be to pound on him, it will only damage you in court,' Castle reminded her softly.

'I know that,' she snapped, though it helped hearing an outside voice say it aloud. 'I know that,' she repeated a little more calmly. 'I trusted you to get our babies safe, now trust me to see this through, okay?'

'If I didn't, I wouldn't be backing you every step of the way, my love.'

Beckett gave him a wan smile and despite the pressing hour of the present circumstances, allowed herself a little peck of her husband's lips. She patted his cheek. 'I know you're right there with me, and so is she.'

'I know that too. Now get in there and bust his balls.'

Beckett had to school herself from laughing like a teenager on a date, instead took a minute to school her face into grim lines as she walked back into the interrogation room. She didn't sit, but braced her hands so she towered over Attwood.

'That was one of my detectives. He and his partner went to roust your buddy Christopher Spitzer and guess what they found?'

'No.' Attwood went even white - Beckett didn't know that was possible - and licked his dry lips. 'No, Chris can't be- he wasn't supposed to be killed. Just Raglan and Mike because they couldn't keep their mouths shut to Christine.'

'I'd guess someone is tying up their loose ends so even if you're scrawny neck is in a cage, it's alive in a cage.'

'Okay. Can I get some water?'

'Sure.'

Montgomery left, and Beckett moved so she was standing in a corner, watching Attwood. He was jittery now, legs and arms and hands just couldn't keep still, like a drummer trying to keep up with the rest of the band. She knew Montgomery had done this to test her, knew her husband was watching her and from somewhere so was her mother. So she wouldn't disappoint them and instead pulled out her cellphone and texted Alexis.

_Hey shani, how's Miami?_

_Hot and sticky, which would be better if my husband was here_ was the reply she got a few minutes later; it was quickly followed up with _why are you texting me like this in the middle of such a heaving investigation? Everything okay?_

_Yeah, there's a pause in Interview and I'm texting you so I don't do anything without Montgomery present, since we are keeping everything 5x5_

_Okay, I'll send your love to everyone, and RJ has a surprise for you when we get back tomorrow morning.  
><em>

The boy was just like his daddy, Beckett thought with a shake of her head, knowing her all-encompassing smile at her phone would be read as a smirk by Attwood, if he even looked her way, that was.

The door opened and Montgomery had two soft drinks in his hand, a bottle of water for Attwood. He gave a jerk of the head to Beckett which had her moving in so he could whisper in her ear.

'Esposito and Ryan are on their way back, and Delancy has asked that he watch with Castle when we do this, Beckett. Any objections?'

'No sir, not a one.'

'Good.' Montgomery nudged her politely aside and looked at Attwood. 'In the interest of professional courtesy to all of my men who have worked just about around the clock for the last five days on this case, I'm asking if you would feel your rights would be violated if we postponed the remainder of this interview for fifteen minutes.'

'No.' Attwood suddenly looked his age, deflated and worn out. 'No, I wouldn't object to that.'

'Good.'

Montgomery opened the door, let Julian step in to watch Attwood like a hawk, and Beckett followed him into the bullpen where Adam was sitting at her desk in Castle's chair with an Icy-Gelpak pressed against his head.

'How you feeling, Adam?' Beckett asked him, sitting down in her own chair.

'No signs of concussion so I'm not going to the ER. What's with the suit?' he asked, and Beckett glanced over to where Montgomery was talking to Delancy; evidently he'd been waiting for them in the break-room.

'That would be the Deputy Chief of Detectives Sean Delancy, and when this is done, well...let's just say he's going to be up to his eyeballs in paperwork. Fortunately, as our records will be impeccable thanks to your hard work with us,' Beckett patted Adam's knee, 'his workload

'Skippy damn. Doesn't mean I'm any closer to getting my badge back.'

'I know, and I won't pretend I know what that feels like, but I will tell you that the universe has a way of working itself out. My mother died and then I became a cop. That led me here, to Roy and Kevin and Javi, and this work led me to Castle and Alexis, and more people in my life. You'll find a way to have this work out as well, Adam.'

'Do you believe in God, Kate?' Adam asked her, and Beckett thought on it, then shook her head.

'That's a loaded question, but I do know I believe there is a higher power looking out for us, and that my mother and your father are both in a place where they can be with us always.'

'I used to think that was such bullshit, but now I'm starting to believe it more and more,' Adam agreed. 'I have to think that my father is in a better place and is finally going to get justice for your mother. Now there's a sorry pair of losers.'

Beckett glanced over her shoulder again and this time got to her feet when she saw Esposito and Ryan getting off the elevator. 'Guys, we've got Attwood in the cooler and we waited until you were back to interview him. Let's move.'

Without a word, Adam got to his feet and followed Beckett and the others to the interview room, where the Ry-Sposito monster, Adam and Deputy Chief Delancy met Castle in Observation while she followed her captain back once more into the breach.

'Has it been fifteen minutes already?' Attwood asked, scratched his arm. 'Felt like an hour.'

'Get used to it,' was all Beckett said.

'Alright, my men are here now, Aaron. Start from the very beginning. What started all this shit rolling?'

'What do you know about Christopher Spitzer?' Attwood replied, and Montgomery sneered.

'Not the best way to get us on your side, talking in riddles Aaron.'

'No, I mean it, otherwise this is a redundant conversation.'

'Other than his personnel file, nothing.'

Attwood sighed, drank some of his water. 'He had a niece, named Camilla, it was his sister Eva's baby. She got knocked up by some married guy she was having an affair with, but when she came up pregnant the guy told it was her problem not his. Eva didn't even put his name on the birth record.'

'That's where the name for the Swiss accounts came from?' Beckett put in.

'Yeah, a kind of twisted homage to her. Anyways, she was a nice girl but she was easily influenced and got into drugs young and into the hard stuff. One night, she was with her dealer and she OD'd, she was dead before the paramedics even showed up. Man at the desk of the SRO where she died confirmed by mugshots it was Julio Robinson she was with.'

Attwood paused, drank more water. 'Eva was hysterical and Christopher, he just about went crazy himself, vowing to avenge his niece's death, but Frank-'

'Would that be Frank Cowlan?' Montgomery asked.

'Yeah, that's Frank Cowlan. He told Christopher not to worry, the son of a bitch would do his time in prison.'

'Only he didn't,' Beckett inferred and Attwood nodded again in agreement.

'Only he didn't,' he echoed, 'and Robinson was arrested and went to a preliminary hearing but wasn't held over to trial. There wasn't enough conclusive evidence to put him at the scene, even though everyone knew it was him that done it. That's what set everything in motion.'


	34. Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash

'Okay, so let's recap it here.'

Montgomery watched as Beckett made notes, though they could simply reviewing the recording from the room if verification was required.

'Christopher Spitzer's niece Camilla OD's on some kind of white powder, and though it's known that Julio Robinson is responsible, there isn't enough hard proof to finger him so he walks and the system fails Eva and Christopher.'

'That's right.' Attwood drank more water, shifted in his chair. 'Do you mind if I stand up? I think better if I'm standing on my feet.'

'Fine by me.'

He shoved himself up, drank the last of the water in the bottle and dragged a hand over his face. 'That night, after the court hearing, Eva killed herself. I got a call from Christopher, and he was incoherent, so I called Frank, and John, and George, and we went to Eva's place.'

'She'd hanged herself in the shower,' Beckett inferenced and Attwood nodded.

'Christopher had to be hospitalized, saying he couldn't handle the prospect of no justice for Camilla. He got to thrashing around so bad the nurses had to sedate him. It was an ugly thing. Day after Eva's funeral, I got a call from Cowlan who he'd gotten an annonymous tip on where Julio Robinson and his buddies were going to be, making a big exchange.'

'Cocaine?'

'Yeah, some seriously high-grade stuff. We all made sure we were in on the takedown, all of us and we splintered off from the group, got Robinson alone. We got some lead pipes and started to work him over. It was supposed to be an easy shakedown but somehow the guns got involved and Julio shot George in the knee.'

Beckett began to see the picture. 'So in exchange for covering up what happened, Julio cut you into his business. Still cocaine?'

'No, something new, something with more pop and sparkle. Snorted like coke but buzzed you like ecstasy without the harsh morning after.'

'You tried it?' Montgomery asked, and was surprised when Attwood answered in the negative.

'Too easy to get hooked and Christopher insisted we all stay clean. But it was a moneymaker, no question. Julio said he'd give us each one percent of this new shit he was trading on in exchange for making sure that our investment stayed bountiful or else he'd go to the cops himself and say we started pounding on him.'

The man sighed once more, a routine sound for someone in his position. 'God forgive me, I agreed to it. I didn't think he would follow through and I thought a few months later, we would be putting him away for good. Then about a month later, Cowlan comes to me and gives me an address, with two codes, says I should go here to think things about Julio over.'

'It was a bank,' Montgomery prompted him.

'Yeah, and not just any bank, the Swiss, fucking Exchange. I put in my codes to the little machine drop box and then all of a sudden, there is this case, about the size of an office garbage can stuffed with Swiss francs and a note. It said 'this is your one percent off three weeks. Still want to call it off?'. I closed that lid down, and had the office drone put it back for me.'

'So you all had these accounts, making money from Julio.'

'Yeah, and we would always be around in the neighbourhood, keeping an eye on things. Until Montrose, three years later. I was already a detective in IA by the time Montrose came into the picture. Raglan was a rookie in homicide, and George was in Records by then too. Key people in all these unrelated spots, according to Cowlan.'

'He sounds like the mastermind behind all this,' Beckett commented, and for the first time, saw Attwood flinch like she'd slapped him.

'Cowlan was the man with the plan, like Verbal Kint in that movie. And for awhile that's how we thought of ourselves, like the guys from _Usual Suspects_.' He shrugged, pointed to Beckett's untouched Coke. 'May I? Probably the last time I'll get to taste one of those bad boys for awhile.'

'Go ahead.'

'Thanks.'

Attwood drank, closed his eyes. 'Montrose started working undercover so when he made detective in the Narcotics Bureau, he would have contacts, guys who knew he would do them a solid if they were in trouble, like Roman Moore. But then Cowlan and Spitzer started getting sloppy, always having the same cars around in the neighbourhood. Montrose was no dummy and he started making notes, taking them to Cowlan himself. Spitzer was getting jumpy but Cowlan was, like you said, the man with the plan, and knew that if Montrose got too close, he had to go.'

'Spitzer was the one who tagged Montrose about the alleged deal going down on Avenue D,' Beckett concluded.

'Yeah, and he had John Raglan wait in his panda around the corner,' Attwood continued. 'Spitzer knew that Cowlan had gotten some hired muscle and was going to offer up the bait to Montrose to go to the scene, and call up his weasel Moore to meet him there. Cowlan looped around back and made sure that he was coming on front from a different direction so that when the shots went off and Spitzer called for all units in the area to assist him, he could be sure the real murderer got out the back way and that only Roman was left on scene.'

'How do you know this, if you weren't there?' Beckett inquired, knowing she wouldn't like the answer.

'Because I helped Cowlan plan it, right down the line so that there would be nothing that could falter.'

You didn't count on Roman Moore, Beckett thought, you left out the human element. 'So Roman got sent up, which gave John Raglan the boost he needed to make detective in Homicide.'

'That's right.'

'Okay, so how do we get from there to my mother and Jarrad Brennan?'

'Your mother,' Attwood sighed. 'God as my witness, that is the moment I'll take to my grave and probably to hell with me too. Your mother was our biggest folly. We never expected her to agree to look into Roman's case, and when she started building a case, we started getting scared. We decided that she had to go, her and all of her colleagues when they started asking for the arrest reports on Roman Moore. George tipped us off that she was nosing around. Stupid bitch.'

Montgomery looked over at Beckett, who had balled her fingers into a fist. 'Easy, Detective,' he murmured to her before refocusing on Attwood. 'You watch your mouth.'

'Anyways, we'd heard about this poppy-runner, Rathbone, who was also a gun for hire, so we pooled our resources and we had Cowlan put the money to him. Only, once the deed was done, he said he wanted double because he knew who we were and doubling his fee for the four lawyers would be the price we paid for his silence.'

Attwood sat down now, as if pouring all of this out had drained him. 'He took care of them in his own style, but the one that didn't go so smoothly was the first one, Johanna fucking Beckett.'

'Listen, you-'

'Detective,' Montgomery warned Beckett sharply.

'He was rusty, which is why she didn't die right away like she should have, and then before Raglan could get to her, along comes Jarrad Brennan.'

'He was murdered too, and his death was made to look like a suicide,' Beckett said, though her temper was thrumming hot. 'Which one of you was responsible for that?'

'Cowlan was in charge of that, got his hired muscle to take care of it.'

'How does Cowlan come by all this hired muscle?'

'He was from the projects, he could turn half a circle and he'd be three-deep in thugs. We never questioned it,' Attwood shrugged, 'since it was quick, clean and untraceable. It got the job done and that's what we needed.'

'Let's bring it back into the timeline, Attwood.' Montgomery could feel his head spinning and his heart sinking at all this information on dirty cops that spewed forth like a filthy fountain of sewage. 'Montrose is gone, Johanna Beckett and her colleagues are gone, how do we get from there to Timo Ross?'

'Ask Cowlan about that, that was his deal, not mine, since Cowlan had the bright idea to make the Camilla account a legacy.'

'How did you bring in Blake Holmes?' Beckett wanted to know, and Attwood smiled at this.

'Blake has a bad taste for the ponies. Always picks the slowest ones, and he came to me, said he was in trouble, and I told him I could help him out in exchange for a few favours here and there. Simple, equally productive. Blake has extra cash on hand, I have another pylon to go to for help when necessary.'

There was a knock on the one-way glass and Montgomery looked at Attwood. 'Looks like we're going to pause again. Want another Coke?'


	35. Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

_Okay everyone. This is all I will say. Remember to BREATHE. _

* * *

><p>Beckett and Montgomery went into Observation, and neither was surprised to see all the men, even the famously stoic Delancy, with the stains of tears on their faces. 'Guys,' Beckett said gently, and Castle looked at her.<p>

'Kate.'

He didn't bother to protect her reputation, and pulled her tight into his arms, pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. 'I am so proud of you,' he murmured to her. 'Your mother would be so proud of you.'

'It's okay, Rick.' But Beckett stayed in his arms a little longer to make sure she wouldn't break apart. Not yet, she reminded herself. There would be time for that later, when she had every last one of them in a cage. Easing out of her husband's strong, reassuring arms she moved over to stand beside Adam. For the first time since this case had begun just five days before, she wasn't seeing the wronged cop with his quietly tough determination getting him through each sheet of paper to help them solve the case. She saw the young man still grieving for his father, who still needed the answers because those questions were still painfully fresh.

'Adam,' she said softly, touching his arm. She could see him staring into the interrogation room with the deadened eyes of a trauma victim.

'I'm okay,' he said in a hollow voice. 'I need to see this through.'

'You've seen enough, son,' Montgomery told him quietly, and flicked his eyes to Delancy. 'This is the kind of man your bureaucrats decided wasn't fit to carry a badge. He's been working the same hours as my man to get that confession and hear that sordid history.'

'That will be rectified immediately,' Delancy said, then cleared his throat before putting his wide, ruddy hand on Adam's shoulder and turned him around. 'Son, what do you say to a nice head clearing draft of Kilkenny?'

'I don't drink,' Adam started, and everyone in the room laughed.

'Bro, the Deputy Chief of Detectives wants to buy you a drink. You can damn well suck it up,' Esposito told him.

'Besides with a name like Brennan, you've got some Irish in you,' added Ryan. 'Trust me it'll be like drinking mother's milk.'

'Okay then.'

Beckett watched them walk off - tall and slight Adam with his olive complexion and ruddy and thick-muscled Delancy, like the survivors of a Hollywood disaster movie. 'Leave your phone on, Adam,' she called after him, 'so we can tell you were the case-closed party is.'

'Got it,' he called over his shoulder, and Castle gave Beckett a wry look.

'We both know that he'll know it's at our loft. Why is our space always used for parties?'

'Speak for yourself,' Esposito chimed in, a little wounded. 'Who is it that always hosts birthdays and Christmas?'

'Before we get out the rulers, gents, why don't we tell Montgomery why we interrupted his interview yet again,' Ryan suggested. 'We got the ballistics report from CSU already on Christopher Spitzer. They came up with a partial match.'

'How the hell does Ballistics get a partial match?' Castle wondered.

'The shell casings they recovered were from the same serial stock that were used in a ninety-seven homicide in a warehouse on Avenue D.' Ryan waggled the paper. 'Guess who the vic was?'

'Matthew Montrose,' the rest of them chorused and Ryan grinned widely.

'So looks like that hired muscle is on retainer.'

'Good work, boys,' Montgomery told them. 'Right now, since we're paused, you're going to copy the disc of this interview-' he ejected it from the slot '-copy it and take it to Fuqua to get an arrest warrant out for Frank Cowlan.'

'On it.' Ryan nipped the disc from Montgomery's handwhile Esposito stayed behind to clarify their marching orders.

'Sir, you don't want an APB, too?'

'APB gives him time to prepare and go underground.'

'He might already be doing that if he knows Spitzer is toasted and Attwood is in custody currently singing better than Mariah Carey in her prime.'

'It's a risk we have to take. But for now, go the route. Get the warrant, go to his apartment, start closing him in.'

Esposito nodded, saw his partner come back with the two discs; he handed Montgomery the original which was put back into the recorder and restarted. 'You got it, sir.'

Beckett watched them go, then looked at Montgomery. 'Once more, Captain?'

'Once more, Detective. Oh, wait, we need that damn Coke.'

They walked back this time with a can of Diet Coke for Attwood, which Montgomery offered with a wan smile. 'Decided to mix it up for you.'

'Thanks. What else do you want me to tell you about?'

'Let's talk about Timo Ross, Angela Doran and Mike Doran,' Beckett said, sitting down and Attwood shook his head.

'Cowlan's the expert on those poor devils. Though I have to say, had Mike been one of us originally with Julio, things would have been very different. What kind of man can order the death of his only child?'

'What kind of man pays to have a wife and mother killed?' she returned with a voice so icy she could have frozen mercury.

'That was business, Beckett. Just like when you kill in the line of duty, that's business to you isn't it? You're paid to end a life and leave behind family.'

'My mother wasn't a criminal threatening an innocent life, she was trying to free an innocent man from prison.'

'Tell us about Raglan's death, with Christine in the car and Goddard in the sniper's nest.' Montgomery jumped in because he knew however much control his detective had, it would fly out the window if she was goaded into defending her mother on a personal level. 'What precipitated that decision?'

'Mike was getting twitchy,' Attwood replied, cracking the soft-drink can open. 'He couldn't handle much more of Christine visiting and pushing pictures of Angela at him, reminding him of what he did. He kept saying it wasn't his call to make, but there was the evidence of money going from his accounts to pay off the same street gang that killed Timo Ross.'

'You said we should talk to Frank Cowlan about Timo and Angela, how do you know this?'

'Talk around the water cooler, as it were. Cowlan said he'd take care of Raglan so he got the guy to rent a car and gave him a description of Christine's car, and the rest of it you know.'

Attwood drained the Coke can, then crumpled it in his hands. 'And that's all the news that's fit to print. I'll be contacting my attorney now and would like to be processed through Booking.'

'Very well.'

Beckett and Montgomery watched as uniforms came in to escort Attwood out, left the interrogation room and looked at each other, waited for Castle to leave Observation.

'I don't know about you guys, but I could use a good belt of something.'

'I know where to find one,' Montgomery concurred and led them into his office, where he produced a bottle of Glenfiddich and three glasses from his bottom drawer. He poured them each a short drink, and raised his glass.

'To Camilla Spitzer, may she rest easy now,' Beckett said.

'To everyone who came before you and helped you build this case,' Castle added.

'To the fallen we stood for today and seeing the criminals locked up nice and tight for their misdeeds.' Montgomery tapped his glass against the others. 'Here's knowing what happens to those bad little puppies who barked up the wrong tree.'

Beckett's glass paused on the way to her mouth as her blood went cold. 'What was that, sir?'

'Oh, just some words from the wit and wisdom of Sean Delancy, he...Kate?'

The glass shattered into a thousand little pieces as it slipped from Beckett's number fingers. She'd gone deathly pale as her jaw worked but no sound came out. Panicked, as he'd never seen her like this Castle gripped her biceps and shook her gently. 'Kate? Katie, come back. Come back to us now.'

'Sir, we need to call Ryan and Esposito, get them back here now,' she breathed, eyes still fixed and staring as her brain recalled the information she'd neatly stowed. '

'What is it, Detective?'

'That saying...that...that's what Roman Moore told me he heard the guy say.'

'What guy, Kate?' Castle asked, already knowing he wouldn't like the answer.

'That night in the warehouse, when Roman Moore saw Frank Cowlan and the man in a police uniform and a ski mask with Matthew Montrose.'

'What, Kate? What did Roman see?'

'It was Delancy.'

Montgomery blinked, shook his head. 'What?'

'Sir, that's what Roman Moore said he heard the man the mask say to Matthew Montrose before he pulled the trigger, and...oh Jesus! Oh, Jesus Christ!' Beckett's eyes flew wide. 'Adam!'


	36. Devil's In the Kitchen by Ashly McIsaac

Beckett turned and bolted out of the captain's office, went straight to her desk all the while praying her fingers wouldn't fumble. She popped the lock on her bottom desk drawer where she kept her purse and she fished out her voice recorder that still held her interview at Rikers with Roman Moore.

_Was Montrose dead then?_

_No, only down. Trust me, I gag on blood, and there was no blood yet. The ski mask asks the black guy, is this the right one, and the black guy says yeah, he'll do. The mask says, take off Cowlan, then waits until the other guy leave and looks at me with these eyes. They were cold and dead and every time I go to bed, I see them._

_What happened next?_

_He said that the man I knew as Drago was a disloyal little bastard and he needed to be dealt with. I heard Montrose mumble a little. The mask walked over, looked at him in the face and said 'this is what happens when bad puppies bark up the wrong tree' and he pulled the trigger three times. I passed out because I saw the blood and then...then the next thing I know, I'm coming to again, and there's the gun in my hand and I'm kneeling over his body, and then the place is full of cops, and I-_

Beckett stopped the recording. 'Sir, I sat with Roman Moore, I looked him in the eye, there was no reason for him to lie to me. And that story is too well organized for it to be fabricated off the cuff. I know I'm right which means Adam Brennan is now in the hands of a multiple murderer and chances are Cowlan is with him. They'll kill him and then Delancy will kill Cowlan and he's got enough insulation to spin the story.'

'Why would he do this?' Montgomery said, the sting of betrayal beginning to work its poison through his body.

'We can find out why later, sir, right now we have a ten-thirteen on our hands.'

'Damn right we do.'

The use of the official code had Montgomery marching over to Karpowski's desk where she sat pretending to tune out the drama. 'Get your boys and come with me.'

'Sir.' Karpowski snapped to, and Geoffs and Newman were on their feet as well. 'Is this about the Raglan homicide?'

'Yes, we have a ten-thirteen on our hands, but we need to keep this off the radar so we don't spook our suspect.'

'Are we walking the blue line, sir?' Geoffs asked with a stony expression.

'Yes we are. Let's move, people.'

They loaded into the elevator, with all eyes looking to Beckett for any kind of an answer so she gave them the essential rundown.

'We have two suspects, Sean Delancy and Frank Cowlan. Both are smart, savvy police officers and will be expecting an ambush with full guns blazing. We need to play it quiet, get ourselves organized as quickly as we can. I will lead Detectives Ryan, Esposito and Captain Montgomery in the initial sweep of the building.'

'How do you know where they'd take the officer?' Newman said hesitantly.

'Because I know this case inside out, upside down, and backwards, there isn't a doubt in my mind where they'd take him.'

'Kate.' Karpowski put a maternal hand to her fellow first-grade's shoulder. 'Who is our officer?'

'Officer Adam Brennan formerly of the two-eight and currently a civilian consultant to the Homicide division of the one-two. He is six-two, one-sixty with dark brown hair, green eyes. He may or may not have a weapon with him, as I lent him my clutch piece yesterday and yes he has a carry permit for it.'

Beckett closed her eyes as she tried to bring the image of Adam fiercely chasing down Aaron Attwood into her mind and not the image of the weeping son she'd seen in Observation. 'He received numerous commendations for hand-to-hand combat training so he knows how to handle himself, but there is the possibility he's been overpowered or incapacitated.'

'Where are we going?'

'Four-six-three Avenue D at Second Avenue,' Beckett shouted as they reached the parking level and they scattered like ants at a rained-out picnic. 'It will be an abandoned warehouse near a side-street intersection!'

'Got it!'

The other officers piled into their cars, and Castle hopped into the passenger seat as Beckett threw on her lights and siren, and peeled out to lead the charge. 'Give me your phone,' he demanded.

'On my hip.'

Castle reached over and grabbed it, dialed Esposito's cell number.

'Kate, we've almost got the-'

'Shut up and listen to me,' Castle ordered so harshly even Beckett blinked as she cursed her way through traffic that would not move quickly enough out of the goddamn way. 'Delancy is behind the whole thing, I can't tell you all of it now, but he's got Adam and he's taken him somewhere to take him out.'

'What's the address?' Esposito replied with the icy calm of a soldier under fire.

'It's the warehouse where they killed Montrose, four-six-three Avenue D at Second Avenue.'

'On it.'

'They'll be there,' Beckett said, and Castle wasn't sure if she was referring to the criminals with their latest target or her infallible back up that was the Ry-Sposito monster. 'They'll be there. Cowlan is too fucking arrogant to think of somewhere else.'

She wove her way through traffic like a maniac; she could feel the metaphorical grains of sand in Adam's hourglass ticking down. There would be no more deaths on this case.

She picked up her radio when she saw the glossy black cars used by the staff of One-PP parked two blocks north of Avenue D. 'Karpowski, hold your men back a block until I give you the signal. Ryan, Esposito flank from the east on Third, at Avenue C.'

She stopped the Crown Victoria, left the lights going but killed the siren. With a body-reach across Castle's lap, Beckett reached for her other clutch piece, shot it into an ankle holster and remembered her combat knife as well. She'd never been strong with knives but this time she knew instinct would win out if necessary.

'Castle,' she hissed at him. 'Stay low. Hook up with Montgomery and Newman and radio for the paramedics the moment you hear me get on that radio telling my men to move in on the building. Cowlan and Delancy need to think I've gone rogue, that I'm trying to avenge my mother if we're going to pull this off.'

'I understand.'

She paused. 'Richard, I-'

'Tell me later,' he told her. 'When we're watching those slimeballs being hauled out in cuffs or possibly body-bags.'

She nodded, then kissed him before sliding out of the vehicle, duck-walking in case they were watching the windows. She found the side entrance, walking past a small area that was corded off with a chain-ink fence. This would have been were Roman stumbled out of, she realized, when they framed him for the murder of a good cop, because the others were too goddamn cowardly to do the right thing.

Taking a deep and bracing breath, she drew her weapon from its holster. Beckett gripped it tightly and stepped over the threshold, into the darkness.

The warehouse was dark, damp, smelling of fresh water and old sins. Blue-tinged light wash through dirty windows, cast long shadows over the long-abandoned factory floor. She held her weapon steady in the isosceles stance of her training, forcing her breath to stay light and even. The last thing she needed was a steaming exhale to give her away.

They would not get away with this, not while Katherine Louise Beckett, daughter of Johanna Beckett, still had breath in her body. She would see to it personally that they paid.

An open door. No footsteps, no voices. Nothing but the echo of her heartbeat in her ears, the pounding of her blood in her veins.

'Where are you,' she murmured in a voice so low she wasn't sure if she'd even said it aloud. 'Come on, come on, come on, you cowards, you sons of bitches. Where are you?'

Beckett reached the edge of the next doorway, pressed her back to the wall. She heard the footfalls beyond the door-frame and she forced herself to steady her hands, steel her nerves

One move, one wrong move, and it was over. It couldn't be over, not until they had all settled their debts to her. Oh yes, these men all had debts to repay her and they would make good on it, even if it meant the spilling of their blood to do it.

She heard her son's voice, her little prince's voice ringing in her ears - _you're the best Mumum, you always catch the baddies _- and knew she could face this. Face them.

With her weapon ready, Beckett shoved herself off the wall in her hiding position and stalked into the room.

'NYPD! Drop the gun, let him go or I will drop you. Do it! Now!'


	37. Janie's Got a Gun by Aerosmith

It was a horrible scene, what Beckett walked into - there was Adam on a high-backed wooden chair, arms forced through the spindle rungs behind him and handcuffed at the wrists. It was impossible to tell whether he was conscious or not, as his face was a swollen mess of bruises and blood. In front of him at an angle was Frank Cowlan, knuckles torn up and spatter on his face from beating the hell out of the younger man.

And in the shadows, moving forward as Beckett did was Sean Delancy with a Glock-17 in his hands that were folded in front of his body in a quasi-parade rest. 'Drop it, Sean,' she ordered him and wasn't surprised when he simply shook his head.

'I don't think so, Detective,' he replied in that cool, calm voice that she'd once respected. 'I do that, you're going to pump me full of lead and then you won't have everything you need to put away the real criminals. Unless of course, I can help you out there too.'

'Why, s...why?' The instinct to call him 'sir' was heavy' but Beckett fought it, as she tried to inch her way closer to Adam.

'It could be I like money, which I do. I really, really like it,' Delancy said with a vicious grin. 'Or it could be I'm simply a businessman streamlining my operations.'

'Ka...' Adam mumbled. 'No...lis...'

'That's right, Adam, she's not listening, is she? No, she's thinking about how she's going to make herself a big bad hero cop saving the day. Stupid bitch, just like your mother, you-'

Delancy and Cowlan both ducked when Beckett squeezed off a round into a innocent, nearby drum-trashcan. 'Couldn't pound on Attwood when he called her that in Interview, so I needed to get that out,' she said just as calmly, almost cheerfully, as Delancy had. 'Next time you call my mother a bitch, I promise you the next shot goes right between your eyes.'

'Fair enough. Frank, make a note, no calling the detective's mother bad names.'

'Noted, sir,' Frank said dully and as Adam went to mumble again, he used one of his dinner-plate sized hands to bitch-slap Adam across the mouth. 'You, on the other hand, shut up.'

Now Beckett aimed her weapon at Cowlan. 'Why don't you smack him around a little more, Cowlan?'

'Alright, alright, it's clear the detective isn't thinking straight. Cowlan, why don't you give the detective a little insight on what exactly is happening here, and why?' Delancy suggested, gesturing with his gun. 'After all, her and her Boy Scouts did get this far.'

'Why Timo, why Angela, why Mike,' Beckett demanded.

'Timo Ross was another Montrose, only this time, since Julio Robinson was becoming rather tedious, we let him get taken down, let Timo be the bright shiny star. Everyone knew he'd gotten where he was because he was fucking Angela and Mike wanted to keep his little girl happy, not question too much about what her daddy _really_ did.'

Delancy walked forward, and though her instinct was to take cover, Beckett knew one slip of apparent weakness on her part and it was all over. She would be down, Adam would be dead and they would walk and that was unacceptable. 'So we made the bust with our people. Julio goes in but we had guards on our side. We're still making money and then that idiot pokes his nose in too far.'

'Like this one,' Cowlan chimed in and deliver a right cross to Adam's face. There was the sickening crunch of cartelige smashing and blood poured down Adam's face, dripped off his chin to his shirt.

'So after Timo went postal on Mike, saying he'd figured it out what we were up to, he came to Cowlan here and said Timo Ross had to be done like Montrose was. That's when we realized Mike was truly one of us.'

'How did Mike get involved in the first place?' Beckett asked, curling her fingers around her weapon so she wouldn't obey her maternal instinct to protect and soothe Adam. He was a big boy and tough, she knew he could take this and survive it.

'He was a working stiff with debts and a daughter he wanted to send to college. Soft, easy target. I told him I had an investment opportunity for him,' Cowlan said, going to retrieve a towel to wipe the blood from his hands. 'Then when he realized how I invested it for him, I told him he had two options, one admit to being on the take or two, make that take worthwhile.'

'Angela figured it out, what Mike had done to Timo, you know,' Beckett told him. 'That's why he ordered her death.'

'No, he didn't. I did, and Seanie made sure the money came out of Mike's account to make sure that's what the cops found when Angela died,' Cowlan corrected her with a nasty smirk. 'Your monster, isn't that what you call them?'

Hearing the bastardization of their pet name for Ryan and Esposito made Beckett's stomach curl up but she kept her face calm and steady. 'What about Adam's father.'

'Ka...' Adam slurred and Cowlan gripped his hair to pull his head back, and delivered a KO jab square between his eyes.

'Adam's father was just like your mother,' Cowlan sneered. 'Should have known better to just let some things go. Once we figured out he knew way too much, even more than Montrose or your mother did, Kate, I went to him and told him we could kill him or he could take the dignified route out and tell his boy he just wanted to see his mama again. Guess we know which one he picked.'

'Yes we do. And the way Maggie Cruz told Blake the way this one-' Delancy stepped over, gave Adam's foot a tap with his boot '-cried like a little girl when he found his father's body, well that was just cherry. And that's all the news that's fit to print.'

Without hesitating, Delancy aimed his Glock and pulled the trigger three times, sending bullets into Cowlan's head; he dropped like a stone at Adam's feet, landing in dirt and grime.

'He was good, he kept my name off the books quite nicely,' Delancy commented, stepping over Cowlan's lifeless body towards Beckett. 'But there comes a time when a drone outlives their usefulness. And the fact he wanted Spitzer dead since he'd seen you round up Elliott and Goddard, well, that was his problem not mine but I, as per usual, stepped in to be the muscle.'

Something clicked in the back of Beckett's brain, though why her mind put these pieces together all of a sudden, she shouldn't say. 'Did you know Mike's daughter was pregnant when you killed Timo?'

Delancy, who was wiping his hands once more on the bloody towel, looked up sharply and Beckett aw the scrambling panic in his eyes. 'What?'

'Angela Doran was nine weeks pregnant when you murdered her fiancee,' Beckett informed them, and when she saw the look on Delancy's face, one of barely controlled rage, she pressed on. 'Mike didn't know until after Angela was in the ground, when Christine told him. We got that from Raglan's phone records, a little conversation where John asked Christine why she was so hell-bent on punishing Mike every week with pictures of Angela. Because that's what all of you really love, seeing families torn apart isn't it?'

'Don't presume to know anything about me,' Delancy started but she was on a roll now and stepped away from Adam, luring Delancy toward the other side of the warehouse where he'd waited in the shadows.

'No? Then how about this? _You_ were the married man Eva Spitzer had an affair with. Camilla was your daughter, and when you lost them both because of Julio Robinson, you told Cowlan to round up his friends and do a little street justice on his ass.' Beckett took a sideways step. 'That's the only reason I can think why you would have your old friends from your Academy days put the screws to Robinson. Job be damned this was blood for blood that you wanted, and when you saw it could turn you a profit, you had Julio cut you in too. How am I doing?'

Delancy sneered at her, clapped his hands. 'Clever girl. But here's the thing. You and I are coming out of this heroes. Adam's going out in a body bag, because you're going to shoot him.'

'You think so?'

'Yes. When Adam was alone with me in the car, he told me that Jarrad Brennan really hung himself out of guilt for being on the take in a ring of dirty cops and then grabbed my weapon from me, told me we had to make it look like

'And the bruises?'

'Self-defense wounds from Cowlan trying to fend off a crazed son on a revenge mission,' Delancy said so coolly that Beckett wanted to beat his ass for that alone. 'Oh, and of course, he shot you too, since you promised to deliver justice and broke it. Stupid bitch, just like your mother.'

Beckett didn't hesitate; she angled her weapon and fired.


	38. Hey Jude by the Beatles

Delancy smirked; the bullet had whizzed past his left ear and landed somewhere in the plaster wall behind him.

'You broke your promise.'

'Then how about this?' Beckett put up her weapon so it was pointed towards the ceiling, and she reached for the communicator on her belt, discreetly turning the channel to Karpowski's frequency. 'This is One-Lincoln-Forty, I have a ten-thirteen at four-six-three Avenue D, the abandoned paper-mill warehouse. All available units.'

She heard the crackled voice return, 'Copy One-Lincoln-Forty, be advised ETA of available units is ten minutes.'

It would be less than that, as they were on foot less than a block away, but Delancy didn't know that; he was too puffed up on his own importance to have a dispatcher's communicator with him. He sincerely believed he'd walk out of this without a single mark against him.

'Look at that, little girl, expecting the system to serve you, to back you up. It couldn't help Camilla,' he said and Beckett heard the bitter grief in his voice, willed the mother in her not to soften. 'Why should it help you? What makes you think with all your power and all your guns and your clever quips that you are going to save the day now?'

'Because I'm smarter than you could possibly think, Delancy. I knew exactly who and what Cowlan was when Adam and I interviewed him. I knew solving my mother's death and the work that Jarrad Brennan put in to it was more than just a wild goose chase. In my opinion they died heroes, doing what you swore to do and never did.'

'And what's that?'

'Justice.'

'Justice,' Delancy spat. 'Like hell you know what justice is about. If you did, you would have followed through on your promise and put that bullet between my eyes.'

'That's where your wrong.' Now she aimed her weapon as she heard the soft noise of her men moving into place. 'Unlike you, I know that it takes more than beating the weak and killing off threats to be a real cop, and I don't deliver my justice on the end of a bullet. That man over there?'

She pointed to Adam, whose wheezing breath was loud and echoing in the empty space of the warehouse. 'He knows more about justice than you could ever dream of. You saw to it he was forced out just like his father was, only when you sent your goons after him to silence him for good, he turned the tables on them and now he's the one who's going to get the better of you.'

'The better of me.'

'Yes. As did I, Detective Katherine Louise Beckett-Castle, and so is Detective Kevin Ryan, Detective Esposito, and Captain Roy Montgomery. And so are the rest of them. In here!'

She lifted her voice and suddenly the warehouse was full of cops in full SWAT and riot gear, hollering at Delancy to drop his weapon. Beckett kept her face on his as he went to his knees, letting the Glock drop noisily to the floor. He put his hands on his head and as much as Beckett wanted Adam Brennan to see it, to have the satisfaction of putting the cuffs on this murderous, traitorous bastard himself right now she would settle for him conscious with a heartbeat.

'Check on him,' she heard Esposito order one of the officers in full gear. When he pulse-checked Adam's throat, he nodded, then pulled out a radio to signal the paramedics. With that single subtle movement, Beckett put the safety on her weapon, jammed it in its holster and took out her handcuffs.

'Sean Delancy,' she began, 'you are under arrest for the murder of Officer Matthew Montrose, Detective Christopher Spitzer, Captain Frank Cowlan, conspiracy to murder Julio Robinson, Officer Matthew Montrose, Detective Christopher Spitzer, Captain Frank Cowlan, Detective Timo Ross, Captain Mike Doran, Angela Doran, Christine Doran, Detective John Raglan, Jennifer Stewart, Scott Murphy, Johanna Beckett, and Officer Jarrad Brennan, and the abduction and attempted murder of Officer Adam Brennan. Further charges will be made known to you when you are processed at the Twelfth Precinct of the New York Police Department.'

She paused, and leaned in. 'You will not take the easy way out.'

'No, because I'll beat this. My people in the right places will see me through.'

'My people are better than yours. Your people are done.' Beckett motioned for Ryan and Esposito to help her lift the man to his feet. 'And I will be there every week at the prison, until the needle goes into your arm, and every time you see my face, it will give you hell like you've never known.'

When he was on his feet, Beckett went to walk him out with her men and then looked at Ryan and Esposito who'd stopped dead in their tracks. The others had lowered their SWAT rifles and weapons to their sides and were all staring at Beckett.

'What the hell is this? We have a prisoner to transport.'

She looked at Ryan and Esposito and to her utter amazement, they stood at attention and snapped a full salute. 'Detective,' they chorused, and held their position, making a lump lodge hotly in her throat.

As Beckett walked towards the entrance of the warehouse where they'd swarmed in, the others formed a flanking gauntlet, each one saluting her with a respectful 'Sir!' as she walked past until she reached Captain Montgomery. It was a jolt to see him out of his smart suits and in the soft-black of riot gear, the shield braced on his left arm and the strap of the rifle on his shoulder.

'Detective, you have an officer down who needs your attention. I'll take this from here,' he said with the quiet authority that spoke volumes more than any blow Delancy could have delivered.

Beckett nodded and when the others broke their formation, began to do their cop thing, Beckett raced over to Adam, where the uniformed officer, who still had his riot helmet on, was just finishing slipping Adam's swollen arms through the chair rungs.

'Officer, you can take that off, I doubt we're going to be tear-gassed,' she told him, then felt her breath catch in her throat when she saw she wasn't looking at Newman or Geoffs or even Julian but Castle's merry blue eyes.

'What, you thought I'd let you go through this alone?' he teased her, and love burned brightly for him as it had never done before in her chest.

'Help me get him off this damn thing,' she managed to get out.

It was an effort as they needed to preserve evidence but at the same time they needed to get Adam medical assistance. They moved him out of the way, closer to the door for the paramedics, and Beckett knelt on his left side with Castle on the right and she cradle his beaten, broken face in her lap.

'Adam, come on, come back to us now,' she told him. 'Can't have you going down on my watch.'

'Ka...tuh,' he managed, and with what Castle knew had to be a Herculean effort, he slitted his puffed up eyes open just enough for them both to see he was still in there. 'Shuh...no...'

'You're lucky I've had two kids so I can tell what your saying, Officer,' she laughed, eyes welling up; she couldn't stop the tears and knew no one would give her grief for it.

'No...cuh...ry...'

'Now you sound like RJ,' Castle commented in a thick voice, then cleared his throat as he heard the unmistakable sound of EMT boots clomping quickly over the cement. 'You know you'll be an even bigger bad-ass to him now, right?'

'Cu...ki...'

'He's a very cute kid. He gets that from his daddy,' Beckett told him as she shared a look with Castle, then looked up and got another surprise when she saw Dave Robbins and Jayla Amos there with their kits and gear. 'Dave, what are you doing here?'

'Our bus was the closest,' he replied, 'and my specialty might be neo-natal and pediatric trauma but I know how to handle this.'

'He's been smashed in the face at least three times,' she began and felt Dave's comforting hand on her shoulder.

'It's okay, Kate. I'll take care of him from here. You and Castle can ride with him to the hospital.'

'Where are you taking him?'

'We'll go to Saint Vincent's,' Jayla said briskly, give Adam the once over for pulse and airways. 'His injuries are severe but non-life threatening. He can make the trip.'

'I'll follow you.' Beckett thought of Christine Doran. 'There's someone there I have to see anyways.'

'We'll see you there,' Dave told her and Beckett let Castle they did their job.

'It's their turn now, Kate,' Castle murmured as helped her off the floor; he could see her wheels turning when she looked around the warehouse full of cops. 'You should get checked out too.'

'I'm fine,' she started, then felt his fingers tighten on her arm. 'Okay. For you.'


	39. She's Always a Woman by Billy Joel

_Hello all! Well, we're almost at the end of this story, and the finale I have in mind will blow your minds even more than they were blown in the last few chapters. I must also shout-out to the awesome J.D. Robb book 'Treachery in Death' which gave me the idea of the salutes in the last chapter. But you know I would never end on a dark albeit happy ending so there's still a little more story to tell!_

* * *

><p>'Let me drive.'<p>

'Castle, I...oh, god I'm even too tired to argue.'

'Hence why I'm driving.'

Beckett walked out with her husband, but refused to loop her arm through his - that was pride; however much she felt the true weight of being a human being right now, she was still a cop and her men would look to her for authority.

She saw Ryan and Esposito were standing by Esposito's Crown Victoria, and no, her eyes weren't failing her; they were indeed playing a spirited game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

'No, I thought we said best of five,' Ryan insisted.

'Best of three bro, your turn.'

'Man!'

'Did I walk in at recess time, boys?' she asked, and both looked at her.

'He gets to go in and deal with Pearlmutter while I handle the rest of the troops,' Esposito declared. 'How are you, Kate?'

'Oh, you know me, nothing spices up a Saturday morning like a showdown with a badge-wearing murderer,' Beckett replied lightly.

'How are the ears?'

'They're pretty good, the space was big enough my sound isn't too bad. Good work today, and all of this week.'

'Hey it's nothing,' Ryan scoffed, and decided Pearlmutter could wait a minute or two more, since Cowlan was still dead and the surly ME would be crankier with more people in his space. 'I'll call Jenny and tell her you'll stop by when you go to see Adam and Christine,' he told her, pulling out his cellphone.

'I think we've all earned a good stiff one after this,' Esposito said with a eary sigh, and Beckett couldn't resist snickering.

'Thought those were for Meredeth only, Detective.'

'There she is, a good dirty joke.' He grinned from ear to ear as he pulled out his own cell and made the call to Meredeth, to let her know the case was done.

'Okay, now, we go,' Beckett said, turning to Castle to give her men a little privacy and slipping her hand into his as they moved up the block to where her vehicle sat.

'Look at you holding hands on a crime scene, Detective. You sure you didn't get your own brain rattle like Adam?' he teased her, and took the light body shove she gave him in the right spirit. 'We're going to Saint Vincent's?'

'Yeah, I need to find out what room they're putting Adam in.' Beckett opened her passenger door, then patted her pockets. 'I- where's my phone?'

'Oh, right.' Castle unzipped one of his many pockets on the riot gear uniform and passed her the iPhone. 'Here you go.'

She dialed the number for the Saint Vincent desk and gave her information to the not-as-helpful-as-she-could-be receptionist but was given the bare bones of what she needed. 'He's in Internal Medicine, room three-three-one.'

'That's the same wing as Pediatrics,' Castle commented, 'we can visit him and go by and reassure Honey-Milk her man is in one piece.'

'Yeah, that's true.'

Beckett let out a massive yawn, and closing her eyes, heard the hum of the engine being turned over. 'Wake me up when we get there.'

'You got it,' Castle replied, but a quick glance sideways told him his warrior woman was already out like a light.

* * *

><p>As they were informed that Adam was just out of surgical recovery - a procedure done to ensure there was no permanent damage to his nasal cavity or lasting scarring, they were told - Beckett roused herself from her sleepy state to visit Christine Doran first. Now that her colour was back as well as her memory and her energy, Beckett wasn't at all surprised the woman's reaction was barely controlled anger as Beckett gave her the whole sordid tale.<p>

'I'm so sorry for your loss, Christine,' she told the woman.

'Don't be. That fucker is burning in hell now for what he did to my baby, and Angela and Timo are together again with their baby. When the time's right, I'll see them again.'

'I hope you don't intended to determine that time for yourself,' Beeckett said, chosing her words carefully.

'No, no, there's been too much interference with the universe's plan already. I'll live out my time here and I'll see them when it's right, like I said.'

'Christine, you do know you'll probably be called to testify in this case, right?'

'Just say when and where, I want that...that fucker to pay for all the hurt and anguish he caused.'

'I can tell you don't swear a lot,' Castle commented, and Christine laughed.

'Never thought I'd meet the famous Richard Castle in my life, and certainly not like this,' she told him, patting his hand; the motion set her IV tubes dancing.

'Well, maybe then, this will help.' He produced a signed copy of the latest Nikki Heat. 'To keep you company while you get better and prepare for the trial.'

'Thank you. Both of you.' Christine looked at Beckett. 'I will never forget this.'

'I don't doubt it.'

Beckett rose, subtly signaling Castle their time was done. She passed Christine a card. 'This is the name of the counselor I worked with after I lost my mother. She'll be expecting your call when you're ready.'

With that, she turned and walked out, headed for the stairs and not the elevator to head to Adam's room. 'When did you get a copy of your book?' she asked her husband.

'We made a little stop at the precinct before coming to the hospital. You were out cold and no, no-one saw you sawing them off in your own car,' he added, anticipating her outburst. 'Julian still had a box of them at his desk so I snagged a few copies just in case.'

Beckett couldn't think of a thing to say, since it was so like him to do that. 'I'm sure the last thing Adam wants is to read about being embroiled in a scandalous case involving dirty cops.'

Her prediction turned out to be dead wrong, for when they walked into Adam's room, he was lying on his side in bed, a bag of clear fluid dripping down an IV into his right arm. His face was still red and swollen but his eyes were alert, scanning the pages of a copy of _Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest_.

'Appropriate, somehow,' she said softly from the doorway, and Adam looked up, waved a little. He picked up a little notepad and blue marker, scribbled something on it to show to Beckett.

_Can't talk yet, doc's orders, need to let the face muscles rest.  
><em>

'Fair enough, because I just want you to listen right now anyways.' Beckett pulled up a chair, sat down and to Adam's amazement, stroked his hair like he was her own son. 'You are so brave, Adam, braver than I ever thought someone could be after what you've gone through.'

_Don't make me blush, it hurts too much._

'Okay, then better news. What I was going to say to you before we found out Sean Delancy was the bad guy all along, was that Montgomery is putting your name in for reinstatement to the Detectives Bureau. You'd start at the bottom and work with Detective Newman as his trainee, but you'd be in Homicide with me and my boys at the Twelfth if we can get the approval.'

Beckett watched him scribble on a fresh page and laughed when he turned it around, saw the _WOOHOO_ in large capital letters and he made the notepad dance back and forth. 'And one more thing. The case-wrap party is next Saturday night at the loft. Bring a date if you want.'

_I'd rather just be me with friends  
><em>

'And family,' Castle added, standing beside his wife and putting a hand on her shoulder, the other patting Adam's sheet-covered leg. 'You're ours now, regardless of whether or not you're reinstated.'

_Aw shucks, Castle_

'Oh, almost forgot.' He gave him the copy of Nikki Heat. 'Don't worry you'll be immortalized in one of these soon enough.'

_Thanks a million, both of you. Sleep now, wanna snooze_.

Beckett nodded, and with the mother affection she felt for Adam sweeping through her, she watched his eyes sink shut under the weight of the drugs in the IV then kissed his brow as she would RJ's when he was sick.

'Sleep tight, Adam.'

'It could be very easy of me to get jealous of you kissing a handsome young buck like Adam,' Castle joked as he pressed the button for the elevator.

'He's the kind of man I envision our son becoming when the time is right,' Beckett replied, watching the doors slide open and blinked when she saw Daniel Brick in his street clothes. 'Hey! Aren't you supposed to be home with Andrea?'

'Not right now, because she's in labour. Her water broke just a couple hours ago.'


	40. Calling All Angels by Train

The vision of a hot bath, the bottle of wine and her man making love with her in front of their fireplace vanished from Beckett's head as she saw the excitement in Daniel's eyes.

'Hey, that's great! We'll be up soon.'

'Oh, I also have orders from Honey-Milk that if I ran into you to that you were supposed to see her, Lanie and Meredeth first before going into see Andrea.'

'Okay.'

Beyond exhaustion now, with the weight of the case off of her shoulders, Beckett nodded in placid agreement. She plucked at her shirt, sniffed her armpit discreetly. 'I stink,' she said childishly.

'That's why Honey-Milk wants to see you first,' Daniel agreed.

They stepped off the maternity floor and suddenly Beckett was aware of the fact she was covered in sweat and dirt and grime, and even a little of the blood that had transferred to her clothes when she'd been holding the barely-conscious Adam's head. All the...newness here, she didn't want to soil it with the outside world of death and despair she seemed to bring with her today.

'Right in here.' Daniel saw that his friend was pretty much a walking zombie, so he gently pointed her towards the lounge, where she saw Honey-Milk sitting on the floor with Nessa playing a game of cards, Shane reading something on his iTouch, Meredeth and Lanie sharing a magazine, and Miss Agnes and her father watching television. 'Hey everyone, Auntie Katie is here.'

'Kate!'

In a flash, Jim Beckett was up and across the room, pulling his daughter tight against him, and for Beckett this was almost the breaking point, but she had a new mission now. Her sister needed her strong for a much happier reason than Adam did - a new baby was about to be born - so she squeezed her father tightly and looked at him.

'Daddy, I-'

'No, Katie-Lou it's okay. Castle's been keeping us updated on what's been happening and I know why you needed the distance. But I'm here now.'

'You'll come for breakfast,' she decided instantly, 'unless Andrea and Daniel's baby isn't here yet.'

'Baby?' Nessa looked up from her game of Go-Fish with Honey-Milk. 'Baby here?'

'No, sweet-pea, the baby's not here yet,' Agnes told her, and came over to give Beckett a hug as well. 'My girl has been asking for you but first you need a shower and a change of clothes.'

'That's my cue.' Meredeth stood up, picked up a tote-bag, as did Lanie. 'Let's go, girl.'

'Go? I just got here, go where?'

'With me.' Honey-Milk levered herself off the floor and pointed at Shane. 'Your turn.'

'Okay.'

Ever the affable sort, Shane plunked himself down with Nessa, who batted her eyes at the pathologist and shoved Honey-Milk's cards at him while Beckett was left in the care of the three women.

'Where are we going?'

'Nurse's lounge,' Honey-Milk informed her.

Beckett knew she was tired, for she didn't remember being ordered to strip, or stepping into the shower in the lounge where Honey-Milk and Andrea stowed their gear. But the blast of water in her face, icy then warm until it reached a glorious steaming temperature. Beckett actually moaned in pleasure as she stretched and writhed and washed away the soot of hard work.

'Here.' Honey-Milk poked her hand around the flimsy plastic curtain and wiggled two travel-sized plastic bottles at Beckett. The hand disappeared when she took them, then reappeared with two more. 'Pink one is facial cleanser, purple is body wash, blue is shampoo and green is conditioner.'

'Thank you,' she said with such profound gratitude, she was amazed her knees didn't buckle.

Fifteen minutes later, smelling like a florist's shop, which was much better than the swamp-ass smell of the warehouse and its activities, Beckett took the towel offered by Honey-Milk and wrapped it around her. The moment she stepped out of the shower, she saw Lanie was there, with a couple of ensembles that Beckett recognized as being from her own wardrobe.

'Okay, which one you want, girl,' Lanie asked her friend who was wringing her hair out over the drain. 'We have business-esque in case Montgomery stops by-' she pointed to the jeans and cream cashmere turtle-neck sweater '-or the super-professional-' she pointed to one of the suits Beckett usually saved for court '-or the very relaxed mumum look-' Lanie held up the third ensemble which was one of Beckett's long-sleeved yoga shirts and her Lululemon fitness pants, complete with sneakers.

'How about we take the yoga top and the jeans, and my flat-heeled boots,' Beckett said as Honey-Milk dug into a massive cosmetics case and produced a hairbrush and hairtie for her friend the super-cop.

'Cool. You want the every-day panties-' Lanie held up a pair of cute black-and-yellow striped bikinis with a match bra in her left hand '-or the kind that will make Castle's eyes pop out of his head-' she held up her right hand and made Beckett laugh when she saw the lingerie that was little more than bits of pink lace held together by satin strings.

'The everyday panties, Elenia,' she giggled, 'because those pink things belong to Alexis. I'm giving them to her for her first married Valentine's Day, didn't you notice the tags still attached? Or the fact the size is completely different than for me?'

'My bad,' Lanie shrugged with a smile, and occupied herself with taking the clothes off the hangers to give Beckett a modicum of privacy. 'Socks,' she added, tossing them over her shoulder.

When Beckett was dressed and feeling much more human now, she looked at Meredeth. 'Well that one bathed me, and that one dressed me, so I am fairly certain I know what you're going to do.'

'Yep. I know it must seem like I'm always feeding you sandwiches, but I believe they put us back in touch with our food since you assemble them by hand and eat them by hand too.' Meredeth produced a sandwich of epic proportions from her tote bag, one that had Beckett's eyes popping. 'Smoked turkey with cabbage, broccoli, carrots, onions, lettuce, bacon, honey mustard and Monteray Jack.'

'What, no kitchen sink?'

'That only fits in my thermal bag. I also have German potato salad in here, orange juice, chocolate milk or root beer.'

'No potato salad, but I'll take the root-beer.'

Meredeth nodded and as she handed over the sandwich, she sat down beside her friend and smiled. 'Your mom would be so proud of you.'

'No, Mere.' Beckett bit off a hunk of sandwich and wanted to start crying for the thoughtfulness of her friends alone. 'None of that yet, we have a baby on its way and I know once the tears start they won't stop until I am dry.'

'Understandable.' Lanie moved so she was standing behind her friend, and took the hairbrush in her hand, began to brush her damp locks. 'Let's see if I can manage a French braid for you.'

'Thank you, all of you.' Beckett swallowed, lowered her sandwich to her lap where, unsurprisingly, Meredeth had discreetly lain a paper napkin for her. 'I'm so sorry to have scared you about sending your children away but-'

'If it were any one of us, we'd have done the same thing Kate,' Honey-Milk cut her off. 'My kids loved the idea of extending their stay in California with the Parrish-Robbinses, especially Dell. He called this morning and said they were going to the La Brea tarpits.'

'Oh, that would be nirvana to him,' Lanie laughed.

'RJ has a surprise for me from the Bushy Garden, apparently,' Beckett said and the others laughed with motherly appreciation; she closed her eyes as she listened to her friends talk about their babies on their impromptu vacations as she finished her sandwich while Lanie used her doctor's hands to do her hair.

When she'd finished the last bites of turkey and focaccia bread she stood up and looked at them all. 'There, do I resemble a human and won't scare a newborn?'

'You look like Detective Kate Beckett Castle, super cop and super friend,' Lanie replied. 'Andrea's in six-oh-nine.'

'Cool. Oh, Honey-Milk, can you check in on Adam Brennan, make sure he comes up to the lounge when he's cleared?'

'Sure. We're adopting again?'

'Yes we are.'

Beckett left the lounge and headed for six-oh-nine, where she hung at the doorway while Daniel helped Andrea breathe through a contraction. She was a fighter, just like the other women in her life, something Beckett herself had learned from her mother.

'You'd love this, Mom,' she murmured gently; when she heard the monitor keeping tabs on Andrea's heart-rate go back to normal, she walked in. 'You, lady have excellent timing.'

'Katie!' Andrea's face was a study in physical exertion but she smiled brightly nonetheless. 'You wrapped the case? Everyone's going to jail?'

'Everyone who deserves it is going to jail.'

'Good. I didn't want to split your focus because I have a very important thing to tell you.'


	41. Over the Rainbow by I Kamakawiwo'ole

'Andrea, I'm sure this can wait until Beckett's a little more on-point,' Daniel laughed, but Andrea shook her head, wobbled her feet back and forth.

'No, I want to say this, so she won't think it's after-birth hormones.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, yes I am sure.'

Andrea looked at Beckett, took her hand. 'Don't cry, okay?'

'For God's sakes, I've had enough intrigue today,' Beckett said with an exasperated smile.

'Daniel and I, if you're cool with it, we want to name the baby after your mother.' When Beckett simply looked at her blankly, Andrea shifted a little. 'We didn't realize my due date was the same day you lost your mother, and the baby will be born after midnight, which means he or she will be born on January ninth. We thought since you've solved the case it would be an appropriate way to bring things full circle. We wanted to know what her full name was, including her maiden name so we don't duplicate Jojo's name.'

'Faber,' Beckett managed to get out. 'Her name was Johanna Hedwig Faber.'

'Hedwig for a little girl and Johan or Faber for a boy,' Daniel decided. 'Is that okay with you?'

'Can I make a suggestion?'

'Of course.'

'One of the other officers working with me on this case, Adam Brennan, his father was a cop named Jarrad Brennan. Jarrad was the cop who found my mother in that alley and he worked on his own time to figure out what happened to her for nearly twenty years after she died. He was murdered on November nineteenth.'

Beckett swallowed tightly. 'It's the same dayyou were engaged and made Nessa, and his son has worked with me, putting his life on the line to solve this case. It's not just about me, it's about everyone this case involved.'

'I think that would be great. Hedwig Brennan Brick if it's a girl, and Jarrad Johan if it's a boy.' Andrea looked at Daniel with tears in her eyes. 'What do you think, Daddy?'

'I think that sounds perfect. Now go away, I need girl time.'

'I'll go see if there's any apple juice left in Vending.'

'Why don't you just go check with my husband,' Beckett suggested as Daniel kiss his wife's sweaty brow. 'I'm sure he's bought a pizzeria by now to feed everyone.'

'Maybe,' Daniel said absently and he left, leaving Andrea to reach over and grip her friend's hands tightly.

'Kate, I know this is a lot to ask you when you've already seen the far side of hell this week, but I really want you in the delivery room.'

'You do?' Completely blind-sided and equally touched, she stared at Andrea. 'But...what about Daniel or your mom or Honey-Milk?'

'Nessa's really scared about me being in pain, so Honey-Milk is staying with her and I want a young mom in the room with me. I know Meredeth has had four babies but she is waiting to hear from her family in Florida and the islands, and Lanie is on call for work. Plus, you need some happy right now, and there's no better way for that to happen than being there when a new baby, especially a namesake one, is born.'

Beckett grinned at Andrea. 'I'd be honoured to be there with you. How far are you, anyways, I haven't even asked yet?'

'Last check only four centimetres. This one's no Speed-Racer like Nessa.'

'Then as soon as Daniel is back, I'm going to get a cold drink.'

* * *

><p>The night was a long one, and Beckett had never been more thankful for a watch in her life, because that was the only current anchor she had to the outside world. Her mind was starting to swirl outside her body but she kept it together for her friends who needed her. She'd taken a moment for some fresh and and to call Alexis at Terrance's place in Florida to let her know that they weren't home because Andrea was having her baby, but they would be there to meet them at the airport from Miami, as would Meredeth be there to meet her in-laws and children.<p>

Somewhere around eight, the Ry-Sposito monster showed up, and took their own turns sitting with Andrea to give Daniel a chance to have some food and fresh air himself. They added that the bullets CSU had pulled from the ground when they'd looked at Cowlan had been the same as from Spitzer and Montrose's murders, and all three were fired from the unregistered Glock in Delancy's possession at the time of his arrest. They'd wanted to continue on but Beckett and Castle agreed, as did the others, that the case and the wrap up that Montgomery was taking care of could wait. This was the place for celebrating new life, not to mourn the lost ones.

Once Andrea reached eight centimetres, Beckett had changed into scrubs, as did Daniel and she calmed the daddy-to-be-again's nerves a little by complaining why he got the fancy scrubs - he was wearing the same ones he'd

'Do you get those custom made, Daniel?' she asked him when the ever reliable Doctor Jim Harvey came in to check Andrea's progress.

'Pants, no, tops yes. I special order them from the big-and-tall medical suppliers.'

'You're being sarcastic aren't you?'

'No, I'm not. ninefootnurses-dot-com. Look it up if you think I'm joking.'

'Well, the jokes will have to wait because you are ready to push, Andrea,' Harvey told her, and had the orderlies unlock the wheels of her bed to push over across the sky-walk into the delivery room. 'Kate, Daniel, you ready ?'

They nodded, and rolled out, Daniel holding Andrea's hand the entire time and telling her how much he loved her. Beckett held back as the medical staff did their thing and prepared Andrea by moving her to the separate bed; the moment she was moved, Beckett was there holding her hand while Daniel took his position at her feet near Harvey.

'Okay, Andrea, just like last time. Nice deep breath, and push for thirty seconds, okay? And...push!'

Beckett felt Andrea grip her hand like a vise as she bore down, and spoke to her encouragingly. She noticed there was a basin with water nearby, and dampened a spare cloth to pat down Andrea's brow.

'Good, and relax,' Harvey instructed her, and Andrea slumped back against the bed.

'Oh, God, that's a huge one!'

'Yeah, but a good one.' Beckett risked it and had a peek down where Harvey was applying medical gel to Andrea's nether regions. 'I can almost see the top of the head!'

'Harvey can I push again?'

'Yes, another thirty-second push, ready? Go!'

Andrea focused her energy and pushed again, distantly hearing Daniel tell her she was amazing. 'Oh, fuck off!' she bellowed at him. 'What the fuck do you know?'

'That's right, darling, he's just a man, they don't know about pain do they,' Beckett crooned and Andrea nodded.

'Damn skippy right they don't. Oh, God! God! It's crowning, isn't it? This is what Nessa was like!'

'Your baby is crowning,' Harvey agreed, and Daniel rubbed his wife's leg eagerly.

'You are so wonderful, Andrea,' he told her, taking it in stride when she hoofed him in the gut as she pushed once more at Harvey's order. 'Just a little more, my love.'

'No, no, no, no!' Her eyes were streaming now, and Andrea looked at Beckett pleadingly. 'I just want my baby here.'

'I know, sweetie, I know, just one more push or two.'

'Okay, I can that.'

'Yes you can,' Beckett encouraged her, and braced her arm to help Andrea sit up as she kicked and yelled her way through another contraction. 'Come on, Andrea Darcy, you got this one.'

Andrea booted her husband in the solar plexus once more, and with one more push, the baby was out. 'Oh my god! It's here! The baby's here!'

'I'm so proud of you Andrea,' Beckett said, weeping in sympathy as she held her friend's hand.

'I can't see, Kate, what is it? Daniel? What is it?'

Daniel looked at Andrea with nothing but pure love. 'It's a girl, Andrea. We've got another little girl.'

'Hedwig!' Andrea cried. 'Hedwig Brennan Brick.'

'Born at twelve-oh-seven am on January ninth.' Harvey clamped off the umbilical cord, which Daniel promptly snipped. 'She's a beauty like her mama and her big sister.'

'I love you so much Daniel,' Andrea wept as Daniel brought Hedwig up to meet her mama while she wailed away like a champ.

'I love you right back.'

Beckett stepped over to Harvey to let her friends have their moment. 'When do you think Andrea and Heddie will be ready for visitors?'

'In about an hour, hour and a half, why do you ask Kate?'

'Because there is another new someone in our family who needs to meet this little girl.'


	42. One of Us by Joan Osborne

Adam knew the doctors were going to be coming in at odd hours to poke and pro him to check and make sure his face hadn't frozen up or something after the surgery, but when he saw the petite blondie with the killer backside shove a wheelchair in his room, he sat up and groggily croaked, 'Can I help you?'

'You're Adam Brennan, right?'

'Yes, can I help you?'

'I'm Jennifer Ryan, Detective Ryan's wife,' she explained and Adam felt the click in his brain. 'I'm here to take you up to the Maternity wing. Beckett wants to see you.'

'Okay.' He looked down at himself, winced at the stingy cotton hospital gown and paper underwear. 'I don't suppose you have any real clothes so I don't accidently flash my junk while riding in that thing?

Honey-Milk produced a spare set of generic green scrubs. 'I'll wait while you change.'

When he was ready to go, he sat down in the chair, and Honey-Milk hooked his IV bag to the pole on the chair. 'Heard you were quite the hero this morning with Kate and Javi and Kevin.'

'I don't know about that, letting myself get abducted by a man now facing almost two dozen criminal charges, and his flunky broke my face.'

'They put it back together again,' Honey-Milk reassured him; she hit the elevator button. 'When is your birthday?'

'My what?'

'Birthday, the day you were born.'

'Oh, May twenty-fifth.'

'Perfect, you'll get to come to Hamptons and we get to make it a birthday party. Oh that's a day before Devon's. You'll meet him soon enough, maybe when we have that case celebration party next week.'

Adam craned his neck to look at the woman as they got off at the Maternity floor and she pushed him down the hallways. 'I thought I was the one on drugs.'

'Funny man. Do you recall hearing Kate and Richard say we've adopted you?'

'Yeah, but-'

'That means you are part of our family now. You will be expected to attend family dinners, the concerts of our children at school, christenings, soccer games, birthday parties, card games. You have no idea but you have just inherited a huge amount of people in your life.'

Honey-Milk turned into Andrea's room and grinned. 'Starting with this one.'

Curious, Adam saw a curvy redhead holding a little wrapped bundle while a blond man the size of a sequoia cuddled up beside her, and Beckett in a chair beside the bed.

'Is this him?' the redhead asked.

'Yes, this is him.'

'I'm him who?' Adam asked, setting the locks on the wheelchair.

'Adam, these are my friends Andrea and Daniel Brick,' Beckett explained. 'They were my first case back after I went on maternity leave with RJ, and they got engaged the same day your father was killed. It was also the day they made their first daughter, Nessa. It's after midnight which means today is now January ninth, the day my mother died and the little one was born at twelve-oh-seven.'

'Kate told us what you did with her this week, the time and effort you put into this case, and since we named our new little daughter after her mother, we wanted your name to be in there as well. So we wanted you to meet Hedwig Brennan Brick,' Andrea said proudly.

Adam pressed his lips together as they trembled. These people had never met him, had no idea who he was and because Kate Beckett thought so highly of him and everything they'd worked on together to bring justice for their slain parents, this lovely young couple was naming their child after him.

'I don't know what to say,' he told them in a tremulous voice.

'Would you like to hold her?' Andrea offered, softening like a toasted marshmellow when she saw his hesitancy. 'Better get used to it, Adam, Kate says we've adopted you, and I can tell you that you will be around babies and little kids a lot.'

'Oh, okay, then, let's give this a try.' Adam held out his arms and he took the snoozing infant into them gingerly, and felt his heart melt when he saw the baby's little nose and her long black lashes. 'Hello there, cutie-pie. Hey, little sister, what's up?'

'We're calling her Heddie for short, just like the actress,' Daniel said softly. 'But spelled differently.'

Heddie cooed and gurgled, and when she blinked open eyes of the darkest blue Adam had ever seen, he fell headlong in love with the idea of having a namesake for his father. Then when she sense the one holding her did not have a midnight snack handy, she began to fuss and splutter.

'Oh, oh no, what did I do? I don't-'

'It's okay, Adam, she's just hungry,' Beckett told him warmly, coming over to pass Heddie back to Andrea, then stood up to wheel Adam out to give Andrea privacy. 'Here, we're off to find food. You hungry?'

'Yeah, now that you mention it, and the doc says I should be taking these painkillers with food.' He held up the bottle of naproxen and shook it.

'Good idea.'

She turned them into the lounge and grinned when she saw her man had come through yet again. Everyone was crowded around boxes of pizza and chatting; Adam could see Lanie and Shane, he recognized her from being on the force, and Meredeth Esposito needed no introduction.

'Adam, you remember Shane Weaver and Lanie Parrish-Robbins I'm sure, and Honey-Milk over there she brought you up to meet the new baby. She's got the new big sister asleep in her arms there-'

'And you are going home,' Castle finished for her. 'You need to rest, Kate. It's been a long day, an eventful one, and you've been awake for nearly twenty-four hours straight.'

'But-'

'No buts, unless you're talking about yours sinking into the passenger side of the car.'

Beckett wanted to protest, but one look at Castle's face and she knew it was time to call it a day. 'Pizza first?'

'To go.'

'Adam, dig in.' Meredeth held out a box. 'This is four-cheese, and there's also super-veggie and meatlover's somewhere around here too.'

'Mama?' Nessa stirred in Honey-Milk's arms. 'Mama here?'

'No, she's in her room with your new little sister, sweetie,' Honey-Milk crooned to her. 'Go back to sleep.'

'New boy,' she said, looking at Adam. 'What name?'

'I'm Adam, and I hear you've got a new little sister.'

'Hiddie,' Nessa yawned, and conked out again; the sight of it had Castle elbowing Beckett.

'See? That needs to be you. Time to go home.'

* * *

><p>'You know, I think this is the most I've ever let you drive my car.'<p>

Castle unlocked the door to the loft, flicked on the lights as he watched his wife strip off her boots and coat, look around the empty space. For the first time since she'd started the case, they were totally alone and it was not a feeling he knew his wife would care for.

He felt the buzz of his phone in his pocket, checked the incoming text. 'Hey, Alexis is telling us to check the family email.'

'Probably more _Walk on the Wild Side_,' Beckett laughed, going to sit by the fireplace. She pressed the remote for the gas furnace and sighed as the orange flames flickered to life. 'Five bucks says RJ comes home with more wading bird impressions.'

'Why don't we just find out?'

Castle brought over the laptop, put it on the coffee table in front of them and held her hand as he clicked on the email. It was indeed a video but not some Internet sensation - it was Alexis, RJ and Jojo, all sitting together on the patio of Terrance's house in Miami.

_Hey you guys,_ the on-screen Alexis said; she had Jojo in her lap and RJ to the left of her deck-chair. I_ hope you're not answering the phone because you're out partying in celebration of wrapping up the case! These two monkeys were missing you so we thought we'd send a video card._

She angled the laptop camera towards RJ, who was swuinting a little from the sun, but his voice was its usual chipper one. _Hi-hi Mumum! Hi-hi Daddy! We are having fun on our va-ca-tion, and we miss you and love you and we have surprises when we are home!_

Not to be outshone by big brother, Jojo straightened up and offered a winning smile to the camera as well. _Hi-hi Mumum! Hi-hi Daddy! Miss you! See soon! Pises!_

Alexis re-angled the camera and together they waved goodbye. _We love you! _they chorused just before the video ran out

Beckett stared at the blank screen where her children's faces had been; she could still hear the echo of their words in her ears, and pressing a hand to her mouth, she broke.


	43. A Woman's Worth by Alicia Keys

It came like a monsoon, a violent flood of emotions coursing from every fibre of her being, all rushing up out of her eyes, as she cried and cried. This was no lady like weeping now, not like in the birthing room with Andrea and Daniel and little Heddie, but harsh, body-wracking sob the likes of which she hadn't experienced since she'd learned of her mother's death twenty years before.

'Oh, God,' she sobbed, and Castle, pulled her tight against him as it poured out of her, and he rocked her gently as a child. He heard her cough and splutter, and was pulling her to her feet, into the downstairs bathroom where she continued to cry so hard that she began to dry heave.

When she was done and had slumped back against the wall, eyes still streaming and her body still shaking, Castle simply closed the toilet lid and flushed, then sat down beside her, took her hand in his.

'Don't leave me.'

'Never,' Castle murmured to her, and watched helplessly as she slumped down the wall, curling into a ball so her head was pillowed on his thighs. He stroked her hair as she let it all out, passing her toilet paper for Kleenex as needed, until she was down to whimpering shudders, and a few small sniffles.

When she'd gone so quiet he thought she was asleep Castle shifted so he pillowed her head on his bicep and spooned against her on the floor, wrapping his other arm around her trembling shoulders and holding her close. 'I'm right here, Kate,' he whispered to her.

'I know,' she whispered back. 'I can't believe this is all over, I mean...I finally did it. Seventeen years of being a cop and I finally did it.'

'Do you think you have no purpose now as a cop, because you avenged your mother's murder?'

'If anything I have more purpose than ever, to do my job and remind those bastards what they did and how it's possible to be the best cop you can be without bribes and dirty money and druglords in your pocket. I have a promise to keep to my mother, and that does not end because we got the fuckers.'

Beckett rolled over and looked at her husband; somehow she still had enough in her that her eyes welled up again as she patted his cheek. 'It looks like I followed through on what I said, that when I got the guys who were behind her death I wanted you to be there. I just never figured it would be like this. Us married with three babies, our oldest baby married and almost graduated medical school, all these friends and family, my father still sober and happy.'

'We've come a long way, haven't we?'

'Uh-huh.' She drew in a great, shuddering breath, blew it out. 'I'm...I'm so mixed up.'

'I know.'

'And hungry.'

'I know.' Castle brushed his hand over her arm. 'But I think there is something else you could use before food right now.'

'You're right.'

Not that, Kate,' Castle laughed as he sat them up from the cold tile floor. 'That is better for when you're not a goobery mess.'

'You don't get grossed out by seeing me give birth but sex after I've spent an hour and a half cry my eyes out on the bathroom floor is too much?'

'First off, it won't be sex, it's going to be love-making. Secondly, I know what you need right now more than anything.'

He pulled her to her feet, led her upstairs where he sat her on the end of their bed. 'Wait here.'

As she had an idea of what he was up to - hard to keep a bath a secret when the water in the pipes was so loud - Beckett gave him the pretext of surprise he needed, and walked into her daughter's nursery first, breahted in the powder and milk and crayon scent of her little girl. And apples, Jojo always seemed to smell like fresh green apples. She went next door and grinned. RJ's room was all about the baked goods - even his sheets smelled deliciously like cookies. Her son the master cookie maker at the age of four. The girls would be on him like ants on raisins when he got to middle school. Raisin cookies, she self corrected.

She heard Castle go downstairs and come back up again, so she met him in the hallway and smiled when she saw he had a bottle of red wine and a glass in his hands. 'You read my mind. No pun intended,' she added on a laugh.

'Come on now.'

Beckett went into the ensuite with him and pressed her hands on her breasts: he'd made it like her own little spa retreat, with candles in their mirrored holders giving off a delicate amber glow in the room, yet it was so bright she didn't need the overhead light. There was soft piano jazz on the stereo from their bedroom and the tub had been filled to perfection with her Japanese cherry blossom bath foam.

'Why don't you slide in there,' Castle suggested.

'I think I will.'

Beckett didn't bother waiting for him to leave since she knew he wouldn't, and when she was naked, she stepped into the tub, sank down into the welcoming bubbles and moaned as if it were her lover's hands caressing every last secretive nook and cranny of her body. 'Oh, God, this feels so good.'

'Irony is, that's probably what you'd say if we were having sex to begin with,' Castle teased her, then passed her a glass of wine, gave her a sweet kiss. 'I'll see you downstairs in a little while.'

Beckett gave a little wiggle, which sent the bubble shimmying, and rather than let her mind spin over the paperwork that still had to be done to officially close the case, which she would take care of in the morning, she let her thoughts drift instead to her children. She wanted to know what Alexis had learned at her conference, and how much fun RJ and Jojo had had at Busch Gardens; Beckett had to give Terrance credit for that one, taking two under-fives to an amusement park that was on the other side of the state. But then, her children were very well behaved and Alexis would know to tell Terrance that all he needed to do was put an audiobook on in the car since they loved being read to.

Maybe that was the surprise RJ was bringing her back from Busch Gardens, or as he'd so cutely mangled it, 'the Bushy Garden'. Maybe Alexis was going to bring her genuine Florida oranges, or something from Daytona. She'd loved watching NASCAR in college when she was done studying, the round-and-round of the cars had always put her to sleep.

When she was out of wine and realized that on an empty stomach combined with the hot water was probably a very bad idea, Beckett drained the tub and patted herself dry before wrapping up with her silky fancy robe. Deciding it didn't have to be all about comfort, she dabbed on the perfume Castle had given her for Christmas under her jawline and between her breasts. She pinned up her hair, leaving only a few loose tendrils near her temples and the nape of her neck, and added just a dab of clear lip gloss to her mouth to make it appear fresh and wet.

Maybe she could get her hubby in the mood for loving after all.

The moment she opened the door of the bedroom, all thoughts of seduction went right out of her head as she smelled what he'd gotten them for late night take-out.

He knew. He always knew.

Coming down the stairs, she grinned when she saw him putting two Remy's sliders onto a plate for her with sweet potato fries and what could only be roasted-garlic mayo into a dipping-sauce sized bowl. And there was an ice-cold soft drink already waiting in a glass with ice for her at the table.

Love for him swamped her, so she would show him the best way she knew how. Walking up behind him Beckett wrapped her arms around his body, and stretching to her tiptoes pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.

'I love you so much Richard Alexander,' she murmured to him.

'I love you right back, Katherine Louise.' He lifted his arm so he was squeezing her around the shoulders. 'You and Meredeth like the same kind of comfort food, chewy things you can sink your teeth into. Alexis is more like Lili and Lanie and Javi, she goes for sugar, but you need meat. So it's a turkey slider and a beef slider, with all your favourite fixings and trimmings.'

'Root beer?'

'Diet Coke.'

'Even better.'

Castle kissed her lips, then made a flourishing gesture. 'But wait, there's more. I also streamed for us the BBC's version of _Sign of the Four_ with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.'

'Oh, you do know your audience,' she sighed with a sweet smile. Picking up her plate and her glass, she kissed him back. 'Let's go stuff our faces.'


	44. The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars

'Kate, I didn't think I'd actually have to say this tonight, but stop thinking so hard.'

Castle lifted his head off the pillow, kissed the curve of her shoulder. He'd hoped the bath, the wine, the food, and even the tender lovemaking after all that would put her mind at ease, but it seemed nothing was going to shut her down tonight.

'It's not what you think,' she replied sleepily. 'I'm thinking about the surprise RJ says he has for me when they get home tomorrow. He says it's from the Bushy Garden.'

'God, he's adorable.'

'I am very intrigued, this is the first time my son has bought me something without you giving him ideas, this means a lot to me.'

'I know it does,' Castle agreed, 'but dare I point out to you last year for your birthday, your son gave you a new coffee mug because in his mind, the best cops in the world all drink coffee and you needed it for catching the bad guys. That was all him too.'

'But you went shopping with him to get it. RJ is just with his sisters, that's a big step for my little boy.'

'Oh-oh, Kate, are we having a mommy-blues moment?'

'Maybe.' Beckett rolled over to face him. 'Or maybe I'm just fixating on this because I have no desire to get up tomorrow morning to a desk of paperwork, and you know there's forests of it after that takedown at the warehouse.'

'I'll also point out that you weren't the only cop in on that bust and I'll have my own report to write with Adam as well as the civilian liaisons.'

'Civilian, my ass. Adam Brennan was more of a cop in the last five days than those rat bastards were being on the take for nearly twenty-five years.'

'Also a valid point.' Castle inched closer to his wife and kissed her once more. 'Try to sleep, okay?'

'Oh, you know what might work?'

He fought the groan as his wife tossed back the covers and scrambled over to the small bookshelf where the stereo sat. 'No, no more sex. Never thought I'd ever say that to you in my life time, but-'

'Not that you pervert,' she giggled, and made him wince when she came back with a book and turned on the bedside lamp. 'This.'

'Seriously?' Castle held up the nearly mint-condition copy of _The Fellowship of the Ring_. 'You want to read this?'

'No, no, I want you to read it to me.'

'Seriously?'

'It never fails.'

Willing to take a little on faith, Castle felt Beckett snuggle up against him as he turned to the first page and began to read. He'd barely made it to Bilbo Baggins eleventy-first birthday party when he heard the light buzzing beside him. He looked down and to his amazement, he saw his wife was indeed out for the count.

'It never fails,' he wondered aloud, and rolling her to her side of the bed, turned out the light.

* * *

><p>The next thing Beckett was aware of was her husband shaking her shoulder, and on a groan, she batted at his hand with the energy of a lazy cat swatting at string.<p>

'Rick, go away, lemme sleep.'

'It's almost nine, and your captain is on the phone.'

Suddenly no longer tired, Beckett's eyes flew open and she sat up in bed like she'd been fired from a canon. 'I'm up, I'm up,' she hissed, brushing at her hair and clearing her throat before taking the phone from her husband. 'Sir, good morning, I am so sorry I overslept, I will be there as soon as I can, and-'

'The paperwork is almost completed, Beckett,' Montgomery informed her, 'and you aren't setting a single foot in this office until you see your family home safely.'

'But, sir, I-'

'Ryan and Esposito were here after Andrea's baby was born last night, they tidied up their reports, and seeing as it's also Sunday there is little you would be able to do anyways aside from a few hours of report writing yourself.

'Crime doesn't stop just because it's the weekend,' she started, but Montgomery cut her off once more.

'Then consider this a direct order. You do not set foot into this office until Monday morning at seven-thirty. Am I clear?'

'Crystal, sir.'

'Good, now, as I understand it, you've got a brunch to get ready for and there is an incoming flight from Miami you need to meet at LaGuardia.'

'Brunch, sir?' Beckett looked at Castle who nodded emphatically, motioned for her to roll with it. 'Yes, sir, I think Castle's put himself in charge of that one.'

'Yes, he said you job was to get some much needed sleep and remain curious about RJ's present?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Enjoy the time, Beckett. I'll see you in the morning.'

'Yes, sir.' She hung up and looked at Castle. 'What did you do?'

'I am going to stay here while you go to the airport and see your babies, while I prepare our family a smorgasbord of delicious brunch-y treats. Shane is coming, so is your dad, and Miss Agnes is bringing Daniel and Nessa here for a proper meal, and to take leftovers to Andrea. Adam is too, after he gets sprung from the hospital and showers and all that jazz.'

He looked at his watch. 'If I were you, I'd get dressed and slap on some warpaint, because I have latkes to make and you have children to welcome home.'

* * *

><p>It was a weird feeling being all alone at the Arrivals terminal of LaGuardia, Beckett thought, chewing her thumbnail as she waited to see her babies come through the sliding glass doors. She'd never gone to meet her family alone, there'd always been at least another mom with her.<p>

The wait was excrutiating, but finally, finally, she saw people with sunburns and 'I heart FL' t-shirts underneath their winter-coats coming through the doors. She didn't realize she was actually holding her breath until she saw Alexis with the bags of luggage and RJ helping push Jojo in her stroller through the doors and down the ramp; it came out in a little whoosh as Alexis caught sight of her and pointed her out in the crowd to RJ.

'Mumum!' He let go the handles of the stroller as Alexis carved a path for them and Beckett crouched down to catch her boy with wide open arms. 'Mumum! You did it! You got the bad guys!'

'Cash'um!' Jojo crowed, clapping with a mile-wide grin. 'Yea Mumum! Yea Mumum!'

'Did you say, 'take him away, boys?' RJ asked in a mimic of Montgomery, loving the feeling of being held by his mother once again.

'No, but I did get to say 'you're under arrest'. That's always a fun part.'

'I streamed the news from channel eight on my laptop every night so I could hear any news if it came available,' Alexis informed Beckett as she gave her a hug. 'I cannot believe it went down like that, it seems like something from a Robert Ludlum novel.'

'I know, but your father knows truth is stranger than fiction more often than not.'

'Mumum, Jojo needs to hug you,' RJ insisted and grinned when he was put back on his feet, unbuckled his little sister's safety straps. 'There you go, Jojo.'

'Dodo hug!' Jojo launched herself out of the seat of her stroller and into Beckett's arms just like her brother did, only being the little sofite she was, planted a dozen kisses all over her mother's face. 'Miss you. Moosh beddah.'

'Kisses make it all better,' Beckett agreed.

'No' diss, moosh.'

'I'm sorry, mooshes make it all better.'

'Shane didn't come with you?' Alexis asked, then shook her head. 'Oh, right he was on nights last night, he's still sleeping.'

Beckett didn't bother mentioning on her way out to meet the kids at the airport, she'd bumped into Shane on his way into the building; he was going to surprise Alexis at the loft with apfelstrudel, one of her favourite treats they'd sampled when they'd visited Chaim in Amsterdam. 'Don't worry he'll be at the loft for brunch.'

'That means food, right?' RJ rubbed his stomach as he took his big sister's hand while Beckett deposited Jojo back in her stroller for the trip to the car. 'I am hungry, and there was only juice and lit-tle things on the plane ride.'

'Doos tissy!' Jojo insisted, and RJ rolled his eyes.

'But that's not e-nough for breakfast, Jojo,' he insisted.

'Is that what my surprise is, RJ?' Beckett asked, stepping in to break up the fight before it started.

'No, Mumum, you have to be patient and wait.'

'You said Adam is coming to this breakfast,' Alexis commented as they walked towards the exit. 'We adopted again, didn't we?'


	45. Feels Like Home by Chantal Kreviazuk

'You sure about this?'

Shane pulled the pan of apfelstrudel from the over, put it on the cooling rack. 'It's already been a hectic week for Kate, I'm sure the last thing she wants on an impromptu day off is to have us all here taking up her space.'

'Shane, she needs her family. Remember when Alexis had the miscarriage and rather than shying away from us to just be with you, you were spending the time here with us,' Castle reminded him. 'This is kinda like that. Kate needs her family around her more than ever now.'

'Agreed.' From her spot at the kitchen table with a cup of strong coffee, Martha looked at her son and grandson-in-law. 'The last thing that will get her through this is if we act like this is some run of the mill case. I thought Jim and Agnes were coming by with Daniel and Nessa?'

'Jim got hung up at his workshop finishing off some cabinets for delivery tomorrow and Miss Agnes, Daniel and Nessa are still at the hospital with Andrea. She was feeling nauseous from the painkillers on an empty stomach, apparently, so they'll be a little later,' Castle replied as he put plates of eggs and homefries onto the island counter-top, smiled as he heard the sound of voices outside the door to the loft. 'And that's neither here nor there, because our family is home.'

Half a minute later and the sounds of his family, the centres of his universe, were filling up the loft with the exact kind of noise and excitement he'd been missing the last few days.

'Mmm-mm, it smells so good in here!'

'Tissy!'

'Hello? Chef Daddy? Your big-bro chef is home!'

'Hey guys!' Castle looked up from where he was putting a platter of bacon onto the island as he saw his children and his bride come through the front door. He looked away discreetly as Shane greeted Alexis with a tender, romantic kiss, only looking back after RJ finished giving his brother-in-law hell about mooshes and flowers. His face split into a grin as he watched RJ patiently help Jojo out of her stroller and take off her little winter boots and coat, remove his own winter gear and give his sisters each a hug before flying into the kitchen.

'There's my main man.' Castle bent at the knees to catch RJ in mid-leap, swinging him into his arms so they were at eye-level. 'Did you like Florida?'

'It was fun, but it would be funner with you and Mumum and Shane and everyone there,' RJ decided.

'Well, I'm sure you had fun with Leo and Trini too.'

'Uh-huh, but- Daddy! You were cooking without me,' he pouted, eying up the buffet on the island.

'Oh, I saved the best part just for you, my junior chef.'

RJ gave him a look. 'French toast?'

'You got it.'

'Woo-hoo!'

He wriggled a victory dance in Castle's arms, and was going for his apron as the other tyke Castle had missed with all his heart came wandering over. 'Is that my little Jojo?'

'Dodo home, Daddy!' She toddled over on her speedy little legs, bumped into his open arms and sighed as her father hugged her. 'Miss you.'

'I missed you too, bumblebee.'

' 'Nacky, Daddy.' Jojo patted her little tummy, and Castle made a pout face.

'Did you not eat on the airplane?'

'No, tummy icky.'

'We hit turbulence over South Carolina,' Alexis explained, walking over with Shane, their arms around each other's waist. 'Jojo was a little sick to her stomach.'

'Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry you had to deal with that.'

'Are you kidding? Jojo throwing up a piece of toast and a child-sized chocolate milk is nothing compared to flying with this big baby.' Alexis patted Shane's stomach, and he flicked a fingertip over her nose.

'Just for that, I'm not sharing the apfelstrudel I made just for you.'

'I take it back, you're a treat on an airplane.'

'Beddah,' Jojo reassured her father. ' 'Nacky.'

'Okay, well, I think we're all here now, right?' Martha looked around, then answered the knock at the door. 'Oh, hello young man, can I help you?'

'It's Adam, Martha, let him in,' Beckett called out, fastening Jojo into her high-chair. She glanced over and saw him nervously come in. He had a small bag in his hands and his face was still bruised like a prize-fighter's but he was conscious and walking under his own steam.

'I brought a little something, since you said it's brunch.' Adam held out the bag to Beckett, took off his outdoor things.

Beckett smiled at the bottle of Quebecois maple syrup. 'My little boy will go bananas for this on the French toast. Hey RJ, Adam's here.'

'Mister Adam is here?' RJ looked around the corner of the pantry and he raced over, eyes bugging out of his head. 'Mister Adam, what happened to you?'

'The bad guys thought they were going to beat your mom by beating me up,' he explained as the little boy stared at him in horrified shock. 'But your mom beat them at their own game.'

'Does it hurt?'

'A little bit but mostly it just looks really bad.'

'Well, I know what helps.' RJ, ever the embracing sort, took the man's hand and led him to the kitchen. 'We are making French toast for our brunch, and you can help.'

'That's a huge honour,' Beckett informed Adam. 'My son loves to be in the kitchen and anyone who is asked to help should consider themselves quite lucky.'

'Oh, dude!' Shane looked up from where he was carefully transferring his apfelstrudel to a serving plate and let out a low whistle at the sight of Adam's bruises. 'That looks even worse than last night!'

'Oushie,' Jojo added sympathetically when Adam came over with Beckett to pour coffee for their newest guest. She reached out and tugged on Adam's shirt. 'Meer.'

'What?'

'She means 'come here', Mister Adam,' RJ explained as he helped Castle shake cinnamon into a bowl of beaten eggs. 'She's still little and learning lots of her words.'

'Meer,' Jojo repeated and when Adam crouched down beside her, Jojo tapped a finger lightly to his cheek. 'Oushie?'

'No it doesn't hurt much,' he replied, then felt his heart stir when Jojo puckered up her little lips and laid them gently on his bruise.

'Moosh beddah.'

Beckett smiled, felt Castle's arms slide around her from behind. 'Our kids are the best,' she told him, looking over to where RJ was studying the cookbook and holding up the measuring spoons. 'RJ, what are you doing, my little prince?'

'Learning, Mumum, the spoons all have these thingies on them and there are things in the cook-book like that too.'

'Smart boy.'

'See it has a one and a line and a two.' RJ held up the spoon, then pointed to the book. 'That means where it says one-line-two we use this one, right?'

'Something like that. Right now you're heading to the table while Daddy does the French toast on the grill.'

'Okay Mumum.'

He climbed up to his spot at the table, right beside Adam. 'Tell us how you got the bad-guys, Mumum said we had to wait until you were here.'

'Cash'um,' Jojo added, eyes wide in anticipation.

'That's quite a step, Kate,' Castle told her, as he dipped bread into seasoned eggs. 'Letting Adam have the spotlight.'

'We're family now. It's what a good mumum does.'

Beckett gave him a kiss, then took a seat on the other side of RJ so she would be sitting between her babies and right across from Alexis and Shane, listening to Alexis' stories of going to a Cuban restaurant with Alejandro Esposito and the twins, and how RJ had been determined to try and order a Cuban sandwich entirely in Spanish, Martha with her airy tones, and Adam absorbing it all in. By the time her father got there, smelling lightly of cedar oil and wood shavings, the French toast was ready and Castle had joined them at the table.

Before any of them took a bite, Beckett surprised everyone by getting to her feet and tapping her fork against her juice glass.

'I know this isn't my style but so much has happened in the last week that I feel like I should say a few words.' She paused, picking her words carefully. 'Family is a funny thing. We're all born into one, but sometimes we find one after losing another. This isn't the path I could have foreseen for myself, but I would not change a thing, because then I wouldn't have all of you in my life.'

She took Castle's hand in hers as everyone lifted their glass. 'To family, however we come by it.'


	46. Gives You Hell by All American Rejects

_Well, here we are, my wonderful Crumbsians! The end of this case and this has been such a journey for me to write this story. I would not have been able to do it without the love and support of my bluebird circle - **Anke, Gracie, Emma, Mona, Jordan and Victoria** you are the most wonderful people I know. This wrap up is just for you. I love you all._

* * *

><p><strong>EIGHT MONTHS LATER - AUGUST 10<strong>

The day was bright and clear, which Beckett found rather ironicI considering the circumstances. She parked in the visitor's lot of the prison, not surprised there was no batch of protesters clustered outside the entrance. Part of her was still amazed at how quickly this had been expedited but then, shouldn't have; everyone wanted this, from the brass down to the families like Matthew Montrose's children and Christine Doran, and especially Adam Brennan.

Beckett looked in her review mirror. 'Are you sure you want to do this, Adam? There's no shame in skipping this.'

'No, Kate, I have to see it through.'

Beckett nodded, looked at Castle sitting in the passenger seat beside her. 'You coming too?'

'No. I want to be the friendly clown you see after this is over.'

'Clowns are scary,' Beckett reminded him.

'Okay, the jolly cartoon characters at whose foibles and follies you laugh to feel better about yourself.'

'How about you are a famous writer with a loving wife and children who will know exactly what everyone needs after this is all done?'

'That's even better.' Castle stepped out of the car with his wife and Adam, gave her a kiss. 'I will see you soon.'

'I love you.'

'I love you too.'

Beckett kissed her husband back, then put on her sunglasses as she walked into the prison with Adam. She knew she was being given special circumstances - no ordinary murderer would have this privilege - so she wanted to be as quick and efficient as possible. The guard had Adam go one way while she went down a different corridor and was met by Augie Thorton a middle-aged corrections officer who was grim-faced and confused.

'Detective Beckett, I have to say I've overseen a lot of executions but this is a first for me.'

'I know, and this was difficult to get approved but Officer Brennan did not have the opportunity to make the arrest himself and as I said, I feel this would be a fitting way for him to correct that.'

'I heard he wasn't a real cop when all this went down.'

Beckett fought not to narrow her eyes at the man. 'Considering who your customer on the hot seat today is, Thorton, I would suggest that 'real cop' is a relative term. Officer Brennan has since been reinstated and is now working out of the Twelfth under myself and other homicide investigators.'

'Hey, I ain't no reporter, just saying I heard that.'

They'd reached the narrow corridor, with concrete walls four feet thick separating each cell, and Thorton pointed her to the cell second from the farthest end. 'He's expecting you. Make it quick, because we're about to go into prayer for his soul.'

'I won't be long.'

Thorton gave her a nod and Beckett walked down the corridor until she reached the appropriate slot.

Delancy looked different than the last time she'd seen him, Beckett thought, he'd lost some of the weight gain that prison life inevitable caused. His face was still ruddy and round, but the wiry red hair was sparser and threaded through with grey now. He looked exactly like what he was, Beckett realized, a hollow shell of his former self who was resigned to the fact he'd reached the end of the road.

'Sean,' she said using his first name, and Delancy's head snapped up, eyes narrowing in confusion when he recognized her.

'The fuck are you doing here?'

'Just came to give you a little send-off gift.' Beckett held up a small white box, shook it so the contents rattled loosely inside. 'Take a guess what I've brought you?'

'Key to the city?'

'Not quite.'

Delancy snorted, shoved open the food-tray serving slot, where she put the little box down and shook her at him. 'What?'

'You can't open it until I leave.'

'Bitch. Same as your mother.' He sneered at her. 'Shoulda taken me out when you had the chance, now it looks like you won't get to do me in the way you want to.'

She thought of the way he'd sneered like that all through the trial, when cop after cop from her team, including Adam and Beckett herself, even Roman Moore, he testified and confirmed every last misdeed he'd committed in the name of his tragic daughter. She'd looked to Alexis and Shane, Esposito and Meredeth, Dave and Lanie, Ryan and Honey-Milk and the rest of their Twelfth precinct family who'd sat in the courtroom everyday to hear the tale, and thought of what it really meant to be a mother and a father, a sister and brother and friend. Sean Delancy knew nothing about that, and because he did, he would never understand what she and Adam were about to do to him in his final moments was more than just a petty, indulgent bitch-slap. That's how Delancy would see it, and Beckett knew this moment was so much bigger than that.

She took a step closer, leaning in to keep her voice at a deadly whisper.

'You're dead wrong about that.' Beckett had a cold smile on her face now, and backing up grinned at him. 'I'll be there, not to worry.'

Delancy watched her take one more step back, then go down the way she'd came in before turning his attention to the little box in his hands. He pierced the tape and inside found a cheap MP3 player complete with earbuds and a note.

_Sean, you've been given permission to listen to a final selection of music in the minutes before your execution. We've taken the liberty of choosing a song that is apropos of the moment. Sincerely, Adam Brennan and Kate Beckett._

Delancy looked up at the sound of footsteps, saw the pus-faced Augie Thorton there.

'It's that time, Augie,' he told him calmly, pointed to the little MP3 player in his hands. 'You're supposed to clip that to the inside left pocket of your jumper, and the earbuds go in when we put you on the table.'

'Fine by me.'

Delancy spent his last mile walk puzzling over just what the fuck Brennan and Beckett were up to with this little stunt, and wondered how the hell they'd have gotten permission for it. What if the governor called with a stay of execution at the last minute? How stupid would the writer's slut look then?

He was escorted into the chamber and strapped onto the table. Thorton remained in the room once the belts were in place, and cautiously put the earbuds into Delancy's ears, then pushed the 'Play' button.

He turned his head to look out into the theatre and was surprised to see it empty. Surely there would have been at least one person, like Christine Doran come to send him off this mortal coil. It was a passing thought only, as the lyrics kicked in on the song.

_I wake up every evening_  
><em>With a big smile on my face<em>  
><em>And it never feels out of place.<em>  
><em>And you're still probably working<em>  
><em>At a 9 to 5 pace<em>  
><em>I wonder how bad that tastes<em>

_When you see my face_  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>When you walk my way<em>  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>

He stared as he watched Christine Doran walk in, along with another woman blonde and pretty with two young people in their twenties, a boy and girl; there was no mistaking who they were as the young man was the spitting image of Matthew Montrose. The instinct to fight the bonds was strong but he was secured so definitively that Delancy could only stare in blank shock.

_Now where's your picket fence love_  
><em>And where's that shiny car<em>  
><em>Did it ever get you far?<em>  
><em>You never seem so tense, love<em>  
><em>Never seen you fall so hard<em>  
><em>Do you know where you are?<em>

He watched another group of people come in, this time it was Spitzer's wife and two daughters, Elliott's nephew, Raglan's son and daughter. They all took their chairs in the back row, like they were at the theatre, hands folded and expressions hard and stony. Well, they couldn't be mad at him, could they? Their beloved daddy or uncle whomever was their relation wasn't a saint either.

_Truth be told I miss you_  
><em>Truth be told I'm lying<em>

He watched as Montgomery, that son of a bitch, walked in, sat at the far end of the front-most row, looking at him with the most vile and ripened disgust. He was joined by a skinny white man with sunken eyes and greying-blonde hair. Moore, he realized with fury. Moore, forever a loser, was out and he was about to be in forever.

_When you see my face_  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>When you walk my way<em>  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>If you find a man thats worth the damn and treats you well<em>  
><em>Then he's a fool you're just as well hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>Hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>[Gives You Hell Lyrics On .com ]_  
><em>Tomorrow you'll be thinking to yourself<em>  
><em>Where did it all go wrong?<em>  
><em>But the list goes on and on<em>

He watched as the MEs came in - the very un-American Weaver who had taken care of Timo Ross, the fine piece of ass Parrish-Robbins who had looked after Jarrad Brennan's suicide and the surly top-dog himself, Pearlmutter in his schlubby Sunday best who had been the prickly by the book pear that had given Raglan the full works when it wasn't necessary. Nobodies, all of them.

_Truth be told I miss you_  
><em>Truth be told I'm lying<em>

He would get a call from the governor at the last minute, and then he would see to it personally that all of these people paid for looking down their nose at him.

_When you see my face_  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>When you walk my way<em>  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>If you find a man that's worth the damn and treats you well<em>  
><em>Then he's a fool you're just as well hope it gives you hell<em>

He watched as the cops who'd been in the warehouse came in - Karpowski and Newman and Geoffs, he recognized them from their personnel files. Delancy had always kept tabs on the people that bitch Beckett worked with, to see if anyone of them could be a useful tool. Now he would be sure once he was out of here that they were booted from the force for life, with no possible reinstatement.

_Now you'll never see_  
><em>What you've done to me<em>  
><em>You can take back your memories<em>  
><em>They're no good to me<em>  
><em>And here's all your lies<em>  
><em>If you look me in the eyes<em>  
><em>With the sad, sad look<em>  
><em>That you wear so well<em>

Then came the final insult: the four cops from the Twelfth Precinct all filed in together like a caterpillar honour guard. Esposito and Ryan sat down first, leaving Beckett and Adam Brennan standing so they were in the middle of the theatre and the rest of the people who had come in as well were all there.

_When you see my face_  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>When you walk my way<em>  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>If you find a man that's worth the damn and treats you well<em>  
><em>Then he's a fool you're just as well hope it gives you hell<em>

The guard at the switch gave Thorton a nod, and he stepped over, pushed the pause button on the little MP3 player.

'Sean Kyle Delancy, you have been sentenced by a judge in good standing to death in accordance with law laid out by the State of New York. The time is nine-fifty-seven am Eastern Standard time. Is there anything you wish to say before your sentence is carried out?'

Delancy looked out at the audience of the execution chamber and stared right at Beckett. She was right, he realized, as they swabbed his arm, fixed on the IV.

This was hell.

'No, there's nothing I wish to say at this time,' he said, 'except that I'd like to finish the song I was permitted to listen to as my last act on Earth.'

Thorton stepped over and pushed the 'play button'; the entire time, Delancy kept his face on the stony-eyed woman who looked so much like Johanna Beckett, he had to wonder if her ghost wasn't back here to see him off to hell.

_When you see my face_  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell (hope it gives you hell)<em>  
><em>When you walk my way<em>  
><em>I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell (hope it gives you hell)<em>  
><em>When you hear this song and you sing along well you'll never tell<em>  
><em>And you're the fool I've just as well I hope it gives you hell<em>  
><em>When you hear this song I hope that it will give you hell<em>  
><em>You can sing along I hope that it puts you through hell<em>

'Sorry, I need to take this back now,' Thorton told him, as the telephone on the wall rang, and Delancy had to fight to keep the sneer off of his face. He watched the guard and dreamed of the ass he was going to kick when he got out of here.

The guard replaced the receiver and spoke in a stern voice. 'The Governor of the State of New York, the honourable James Fitzgerald, has confirmed this execution will take place as scheduled. Sean Kyle Delancy, you will now be administered the lethal injection. May God have mercy on your soul.'

From the other side of the glass Beckett watched Delancy die, put her hand over Adam's as he gripped her arm tightly. 'There's no shame in it,' she told him as she felt him shudder beside her. 'There is no shame in being happy your father and my mother can rest easy now.'

'I know.'

When it was done, and they were all back outside in the cleansing fresh air of late summer, they met as a group by Beckett's car. Ryan and Esposito had donned aviator sunglasses against the brilliant sun, which only served to make them look like the bad-ass cops she knew them to be.

'Never seems right to celebrate a life ending, but today we make an exception, I think,' Ryan commented, then put a hand on Adam's shoulder. 'Your first execution, Officer, how does it feel?'

'Can I tell you in a week?'

'Of course.'

'Now there comes trouble,' Esposito commented, nodding past them, and they all turned to see Castle and Montgomery walking towards them. 'Castle, you sure you want to hang out with this guy since he left us?'

'Left you, hell, I'm going to be hanging around even more to make sure the new Deputy Chief of Detectives for South Manhattan remembers who got him were he is,' Castle returned.

'Oh, come on, Castle, I'm gonna be fine down there at One-PP, you're going to be needed more than ever at the Twelfth.' Montgomery slapped Castle on the shoulder. 'Karpowski may think you're cute in small doses but now that she runs the Homicide show, you'll need to break her in. Beckett can I have a word for a moment?'

Beckett nodded, and left the guys to discuss what would be a good ass-kissing present to the new lieutenant of the Twelfth's Homicide division while she walked down the row of cars with her former captain. 'How does it feel, taking the chair like this, sir?' she asked him.

'It feels...earned. I know the job I did to route out bad cops and that's the work that got me where I am. Or where I'm going to be at the end of the month. Let me ask you something Kate.' Montgomery stopped where he was and gently touched her arm to turn her to face him. 'Did you give Delancy that MP3 player just for your own personal satisfaction?'

'Partly. I wanted to give him the finger somehow when he knew it was too late to try and get at me. I also know that it was for every last person whose life he ruined with his shitty decision making. But mostly, it was because I wanted him to know he's just a bastard who had a chance to be great and he brought his ruin on himself.'

'Good answer.'

'Let me ask you a question, sir.'

'Why did I not pick you to run the Homicide bullpen?'

Beckett shook her head. 'No, I know why you didn't pick me. Karpowski's a better administrator than I am and she won't drive everyone crazy over the paperwork like me.'

'Then what's your question, Kate?'

'May I buy you a drink at the Old Haunt?'

Montgomery laughed. 'Only if you join me, Detective.'

Beckett joined his laughter and was charmed when he offered her his arm to escort her back to the group of men waiting for them. 'Still can't believe my husband bought that place.'

'Well, you can be sure that I'll be stopping in there at least once a week until I get used to my new digs.'

'You'll be fine sir.'

'I let you leave with my wife for two minutes and you've already scooped her from me,' Castle sighed teasingly. 'The least you can do is buy her a drink.'

'Actually I'm buying him a drink today.'

'Actually,' Esposito interjected, 'the first round is courtesy of the rookie.'

'What' Adam squawked as the others looked to him.

'Hey, it's part of being a rookie again. Suck it up,' Ryan said jovially. 'There's gonna be plenty of times when the shoe will be on the other foot.'

'Either way, it's time to call it a day,' Montgomery said.

Beckett wrapped her arms around her husband's waist and squeezed as Adam hopped in the back of the car. She looked up at the sky, murmured 'Mom, Jarrad, I'll talk to you soon,' and rode off with her knight in shining Armani into the welcome promise of a good meal and a cold drink.


End file.
